Pasteurella vaccine

ABSTRACT

A vaccine for immunizing animals against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin is disclosed. The vaccine contains a Pasteurella multocida toxin or derivative thereof that has been rendered non-toxic by genetic and/or biochemical means. The toxin or derivative is encoded by a nucleotide sequence from Pasteurella multocida toxin which is inserted in an expression vector capable of replicating in a suitable host microorganism in which the sequence may be expressed.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a vaccine for immunizing animals against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin, a DNA sequence encoding a Pasteurella multocida toxin useful for producing the toxin and as a diagnostic agent, methods of producing and isolating a P. multocida toxin, use of a P. multocida toxin, a monoclonal antibody directed against a P. multocida toxin, a diagnostic agent comprising said monoclonal antibody and the use of said monoclonal antibody for a variety of diagnostic and other purposes.

TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

Atrophic rhinitis is a disease which profoundly affects the bone structure of the porcine snout. The etiological agent which is currently considered to be the cause of growth retarding progressive atrophic rhinitis is toxigenic (toxin-producing) strains of P. multocida which colonize the nasal cavity of pigs (Pedersen and Barfod, 1981, (ref. 1), Rutter and Rojas, 1982, (ref. 2), Elling and Pedersen, 1985, (ref. 3), Pedersen et al. 1988 (ref. 4). It has been that the nasal mucosa are more easily colonized by P. multocida when the resistance to infection is lower such as when the pigs are concomitantly infected with Bordetella bronchiseptica or when the nasal mucosa are exposed to a mild chemical irritant (cf. Pedersen and Elling, 1984, (ref. 5).

The pathological effects of P. multocida infection may be ascribed to a toxin produced by this bacterium. The toxin which has an apparent molecular weight of 143 kd and an actual molecular weight of 146.5 kd induces bone resorption (osteolysis) of the nasal turbinates and other bone structures in the nasal cavity by stimulating osteoclast activity in porcine turbinate bones, and causes impaired osteoblastic bone formation.

The disease is of major economic importance to pig breeders all over the world, since apart from the pathological effects on the nasal (and occasionally facial) bones noted above, it causes a slower growth rate of the infected pigs and consequently higher production costs. Attempts have therefore been made to reduce the occurrence and the significance of P. multocida infection, for instance by the establishment of SPF (specific pathogen free) pigs via cesarean section, or by antibiotic treatment of infected animals or prophylactic vaccination.

Known vaccines for the immunization of animals, principally pigs, against diseases ascribable to P. multocida infection, especially atrophic rhinitis, comprise killed P. multocida cells optionally combined with killed Bordetella bronchiseptica cells (cf. EP 85 469) and/or an inactivated (usually by heat treatment or addition of formaldehyde) toxin-containing extract of toxigenic P. multocida. Vaccines of the latter type are commercially available from Northern Drugs & Chemicals Ltd., Copenhagen, Denmark, under the trademark Atrinord®, as well as from Intervet International BV, Boxmoor, Holland, under the trademark Nobi-vacART®.

The present inventors contemplate that an improved immunogenic effect relative to the known vaccine preparations may be obtained by using a purified and suitably modified toxin preparation for vaccination purposes either to replace the conventional vaccines or as a constituent thereof.

The purification of P. multocida toxin has previously been described. Thus, Foged et al., 1987, (ref. 6) disclose the purification of the toxin by chromatography and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The purified toxin is used solely for studying its toxic and pathological effects. Kamp et al., 1987, (ref. 7) also disclose the purification of the P. multocida toxin for the purpose of clinical studies. They suggest that the purified toxin may be used as an antigen to raise specific antibodies useful for serological tests. Nakai et al., 1984, (ref. 8) disclose a method of purifying the P. multocida toxin by chromatography and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. They further disclose the production of polyclonal antibodies directed against the purified toxin which they use to analyse the purity of the purified toxin. It is suggested that the antibodies may be used to further study the role of the toxin in atrophic rhinitis.

None of these publications suggest the use of a purified toxin as a component of a vaccine for immunizing animals against Pasteurella infection, and this is believed to be a novel concept.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, in one aspect the present invention relates to a vaccine for immunizing an animal, including a human being, against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin, the vaccine comprising an immunogenically effective amount of a recombinant, immunogenic, detoxified P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue together with an immunologically acceptable carrier or vehicle.

For the preparation of the known vaccines, a toxigenic Pasteurella strain is cultivated and the toxin is isolated from the culture medium or from a bacterial extract followed by detoxification by, for instance, thermal or chemical treatment. Compared to this procedure, the production of the toxin or toxin analogue by recombinant DNA techniques has a number of advantages: it is possible to produce the toxin or toxin analogue by growing a non-pathogenic organism, the toxin or toxin analogue may be produced in higher quantities than those produced by wild-type P. multocida strains, for instance by using a strong promoter to induce a high level of expression of the toxin gent or by using a high copy number vector for cloning the toxin gent, and it is possible to produce the toxin or toxin analogue in a detoxified form, e.g. by subjecting file gent encoding the toxin to treatment with a mutagen, or by deleting a part of the nucleotide sequence coding for the toxin or toxin analogue, substituting one or more nucleotides in the sequence, etc. The recombinant toxin or toxin analogue may be used in substantially pure form in the vaccine of the invention but may also be employed as a crude or partially purified preparation.

In the present context, the term "substantially pure" is understood to mean that the vaccine is substantially free from other immunogenically active components the presence of which might give rise to adverse immune reactions in the animals immunized with the vaccine and, most importantly, that no other components of the microorganisms producing the toxin or toxin analogue, such as cell debris or cellular proteins apart from the toxin or toxin analogue itself or a protein or polypeptide to which the toxin or toxin analogue is fused (vide below) are present in the vaccine preparation. A high purity of the detoxified toxin or toxin analogue is believed to result in a high antitoxin response on immunization with the vaccine of the invention and a lower dosage of the toxin or toxin analogue may consequently be required for immunization purposes than that used in crude or partially purified vaccine preparations. A substantially pure toxin or toxin analogue has the added advantage that the exact concentration thereof in a given vaccine preparation is known so that an exact dosage may be administered to the animal in question.

The microorganism producing an osteolytic toxin (i.e. a toxin directly or indirectly involved in bone resorption) against which the vaccine confers immunity is preferably P. multocida. Other microorganisms which have shown osteolytic effects or regulation of specific markers of bone metabolism are e.g. Actinomyes viscosus and Bordetella pertussis (Trummel et al., 1979, (ref. 9) and Price (ref. 10).

Due to the toxic activity of the P. multocida toxin, it is not possible to use the native toxin in a vaccine of the invention. Rather, it must be present in detoxified form. The term "detoxified" should be understood to mean that the toxic activity has been removed from at least a sufficient number, but not necessarily all, of the toxin molecules present in the vaccine preparation so that the vaccine, when administered to an animal to be immunized, will not produce any adverse toxic effects in the animal in question, while still giving rise to a satisfactory immune response.

The detoxification of the P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue may be carried out in a variety of ways. Thus, it is possible to subject the toxin or toxin analogue to thermal treatment, the toxin being known to be heat labile and to be inactivated (i.e. detoxified) at 70° C. Furthermore, the toxin or toxin analogue may be subjected to treatment with a chemical, such as formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde or a suitable proteolytic enzyme, e.g. trypsin. Detoxification may also be brought about by mutagenizing the gone coding for the P. multrocida toxin or toxin analogue by means of, for instance, ultraviolet radiation, ionizing radiation or a chemical mutagen such as mitomycin C, 5-bromouracil, methylmethane sulphonate, nitrogen mustard or a nitofuran. Furthermore, the toxin may be detoxified by substitution, deletion, addition or insertion of one or more amino acids in the toxin or toxin analogue, or by substitution, addition, deletion or insertion of one or more base pairs in the nucleotide sequence coding for the toxin or toxin analogue, or a combination of these measures.

In contrast to detoxification by thermal or chemical treatment, the genetic procedure as the obvious advantage of resulting in a uniform population of equally detoxified molecules.

It should be noted that the terms "substitution, deletion, addition or insertion" should be interpreted with reference to the full-length toxin protein. Thus, "substitution" is intended to mean the replacement of any one or more amino acids or nucleotides in the full amino acid or nucleotide sequence with one or more others, "addition" is understood to mean the addition of one or more amino acids or nucleotides at either end of the full amino acid or nucleotide sequence, "insertion" is intended to mean the introduction of one or more amino acids or nucleotides within the full amino acid or nucleotide sequence, and "deletion" is intended to indicate that one or more amino acids or nucleotides have been deleted from the full amino acid or nucleotide sequence whether at either end of the sequence or at any suitable point within it. It should be understood that the detoxification of the toxin or toxin analogue may also be brought about by a combination of two or more of these procedures.

The term "toxin analogue" is used in the present context to indicate a protein or polypeptide of a similar amino acid composition or sequence as the P. multocida toxin allowing for variations which do not have an adverse effect on the immunogenicity of the analogue.

The analogous polypeptide or protein may be derived from a microorganism of another species than P. multocida or may be partially or completely of synthetic origin. The analogous polypeptide or protein may also be one which comprises at least one epitope reactive with anti-P. multocida toxin antibodies found in samples from individuals with atrophic rhinitis and/or which elicits antibodies reactive with native P. multocida toxin. The term is further intended to mean any immunogenic subsequence, functional equivalent or derivative of the toxin.

The term "immunogenic subsequence" is intended to indicate a sequence of the full-length toxin which from the outset is produced in a truncated form relative to the full-length toxin protein or which subsequent to production of the full-length protein is generated, for instance by proteolytic cleavage thereof or by expression of a nucleotide sequence shorter than the full nucleotide sequence encoding P. multocida toxin. The minimum subsequence is one which at least comprises a relevant epitope of the toxin, i.e. an epitope which gives rise to a relevant immune response in an animal immunized with the vaccine of the invention.

The term "functional equivalent" is intended to include all immunogenically active substances with the ability to evoke an immune response in animals to which a vaccine containing the equivalent has been administered which is similar to the immune response evoked by the detoxified P. multocida toxin, in that it is able to confer immunity to diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin. The functional equivalent may be derived from a microorganism of another species than P. multocida or may partially or completely be of synthetic origin. It should be understood that the similarities between the P. multocida toxin and the functional equivalent are qualitative rather than quantitative, relating to the nature rather than the level of activity of the functional equivalent.

The term "derivative" is understood to mean a modification of the toxin such as one produced by substitution, insertion, addition or deletion of one or more amino acids or nucleotides or a combination of these measures, as defined above, or by fusion with another polypeptide.

In a further aspect, the present invention relates to a DNA fragment comprising a nucleotide sequence coding for a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue, as defined above. The DNA fragment may for instance be used in a method of preparing the toxin or toxin analogue by recombinant DNA techniques or as a diagnostic agent (i.e. a DNA probe).

In a still further aspect, the present invention relates to a monoclonal antibody which is directed against or reactive with a P. multocida toxin or a toxin analogue as defined above, or a fragment of said antibody. It should be noted that the antibody may be reactive with both the toxic and detoxified toxin, thus making it useful for a variety of diagnostic, immunization and isolation purposes as will be described in further detail below.

DETAILED DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

The toxin produced by P. multocida (in the following occasionally abbreviated to PMT) which, as noted above, is generally believed to be the causative agent of porcine atrophic rhinitis, has in the prior literature been variously termed "dermonecrotic toxin", "osteolytic toxin", "turbinate atrophy toxin" and "heat labile exotoxin", but it would appear to be the same toxin as the amino acid composition, isoelectric point and biological activities of the variously termed toxins show basic similarities, although minor variations in the properties of toxins isolated from different strains of P. multocida appear to exist. The estimated amino acid composition of PMT (as deduced from the DNA sequence) is as follows:

Ala is found 76 times - 5.91%

Cys is found 8 times - 0.62%

Asp is found 71 times - 5.53%

Glu is found 100 times - 7.78%

Phe is found 69 times - 5.37%

Gly is found 71 times - 5.53%

His is found 19 times - 1.48%

Ile is found 92 times - 7.16%

Lys is found 70 times - 5.45%

Led is found 127 times - 9.88%

Met is found 36 times - 2.80%

Asn is found 73 times - 5.68%

Pro is found 62 times - 4.82%

Gln is found 56 times - 4.36%

Arg is found 58 times - 4.51%

Ser is found 97 times - 7.55%

Thr is found 66 times - 5.14%

Val is found 63 times - 4.90%

Trp is found 18 times - 1.40%

Tyr is found 53 times - 4.12%

The total number of amino acid residues is 1285, and the full-length toxin has a molecular weight of 146.5 kd.

The recombinant toxin or toxin analogue used in the vaccine of the invention may more specifically be one encoded by a DNA sequence substantially as shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) or a subsequence thereof coding an immunogenic subsequence of the toxin or toxin analogue. It should be noted that the amino acid sequence (SEQ. ID. NO. 2) deduced from the DNA sequence is also shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) above the DNA sequence. A suitable analogue may be one which has a DNA sequence which differs from that of the native toxin by one or more base pairs and which may be derived by substituting one or more nucleotides in the toxin DNA sequence either giving rise to the same amino acid sequence, but where the nucleotide substitutions make the sequence conform to the codon usage of the microorganism in which the sequence is inserted. or giving rise to a somewhat different amino acid sequence which, however, is functionally similar to that of the native toxin.

Apart from the toxin or toxin analogue as defined above, the vaccine of the invention also comprises an immunologically acceptable carrier or vehicle. This vehicle may be any vehicle usually employed in the preparation of vaccines, e.g. a diluent such as isotonic saline, suspending agent etc. The vaccine may be prepared by mixing an immunogenically effective amount of the toxin or toxin analogue with the vehicle in an amount resulting in the desired concentration of the toxin or toxin analogue in the vaccine preparation. Although the amount of toxin or toxin analogue per unit dose of the vaccine will differ according to the age of the animals to be immunized (for instance according to whether sows or piglets are to be immunized against P. multocida), the route and form of administration, and the immunogenicity of the particular toxin present in the vaccine, a suitable amount of toxin or toxin analogue is contemplated in range of 0.1-500 μg per dosage of the vaccine.

The vaccine may further comprise an adjuvant in order to increase the immunogenicity of the vaccine preparation. The adjuvant may be selected from Freund's complete or incomplete adjuvant, aluminium hydroxide, Bordetella pertussis, a saponin, a muramyl dipeptide, an iscom (immune stimulating complex: cf. for instance EP 109 942) and an oil, such as a vegetable oil, e.g. peanut oil, or a mineral oil, e.g. silicone oil.

In some cases it may be advantageous to couple the toxin or toxin analogue to a carrier, in particular a macromolecular carrier. The carrier is usually a polymer to which the toxin is bound by hydrophobic non-covalent inneraction, such as a plastic, e.g. polystyrene, or a polymer to which the toxin is covalently bound, such as a polysaccharide, or a polypeptide, e.g. bovine serum albumin, ovalbumin or keyhole limpet hemocyanin. The carrier should preferably be non-toxic and non-allergenic. The toxin or toxin analogue may be multivalently coupled to the macromolecular carrier as this provides an increased immunogenicity of the vaccine preparation. It is also contemplated that the toxin or toxin analogue may be presented in multivalent form by polymerizing the toxin or toxin analogue with itself.

In a particular embodiment of the vaccine of the present invention, the toxin or toxin analogue as defined above is fused to another polypeptide. Techniques for preparing fused polypeptides are known from, e.g. Casadaban and Cohen, 1983, (ref. 11). Alternatively, the fusion may be provided by fusing the nucleotide sequence encoding the toxin to a nucleotide sequence encoding another polypeptide so that the fused nucleotide sequence, when inserted in an appropriate vector, is expressed as a fusion polypeptide on transformation of the vector to a suitable microorganism and growth of the microorganism under conditions favorable to the expression of the fused sequence. The polypeptide to which the toxin is fused may, for instance, be a carrier polypeptide as suggested above, lysozyme or another immunogenic peptide such as a Ty protein from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, protein A from Scaphylococcus aureus, Hepatitis B core antigen, etc.

It is also contemplated that the vaccine may be in the form of tablet, granule or capsule intended for oral administration since there is some evidence that immunogens may be absorbed through the intestinal wall and stimulate B-lymphocytes which then migrate to local epithelial regions where they transform into immunoglobulin-secreting plasma cells. An oral vaccine should be provided with an enteric coating in order to protect the toxin or toxin analogue from substances present in gastric juice which might be deleterious to the toxin or toxin analogue, such as pepsin. The enteric coating may be selected from shellac, cellulose acetate esters such as cellulose acetate phthalate, hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose esters such as hydroxpropylmethyl cellulose phythalate, polyvinyl acetate esters such as polyvinyl acetate phthalate, and polymers of methacrylic acid and (meth)acrylic acid esters. Newly developed methods of encapsulations. based on microspheres with a diameter of about 5-15 μm are of special interest since such particles containing an immunogenic substance after administration will be selectively delivered to Peyers's patches thereby providing immunity on mucosal surfaces. Stimulation of the immune response on respiratory mucosal surfaces may also be obtained through intranasal immunizations. (Mestecky, 1987, (ref. 12).

The DNA fragment of the invention comprising the nucleotide sequence encoding the toxin or toxin analogue may be derived from complementary cDNA obtained by preparing a cDNA library on the basis of mRNA from a toxin-producing P. multocida strain by standard methods. Alternatively and preferably, the nucleotide sequence may be derived from a P. multocida genome, by screening for genomic sequences hybridizing to a DNA probe prepared on the basis of the full or partial amino acid sequence of the toxin in accordance with established procedures or by establishing a toxin gene library and screening for toxin-producing clones by means of a toxin-specific antibody (for a more detailed description of this procedure, see Example 4). In the case of PMT, it is not possible to prepare a DNA probe on the basis of its N-terminal amino acid sequence since PMT is blocked in the N-terminal and therefore is not degraded by procedures for the sequencing of amino acids.

Another routine screening method which has proven to be difficult in the case of PMT is screening for toxin-producing clones by means of an anti-PMT serum. When using serum from a rabbit repeatedly immunized with PMT, the present inventors found 5 E.coli clones by the Colony bloc method in the gene library described in Example 5. Further studies of the above 5 clones, however, showed that none of them were producing PMT. These results indicate the importance of performing the screening with anti-PMT monoclonal antibodies as described in Example 5.

The nucleotide sequence may also be derived from a bacteriophage infectious for P. multocida, i.e. one which has been transferred from one bacterial strain which originally carried the sequence to another strain which did not originally carry the sequence by bacteriophage transfection. Similarly, the nucleotide sequence may be derived from a plasmid or other genetic element transferred from one strain to another by conjugation, transformation or the like.

Furthermore, the nucleotide sequence coding for the toxin may be a synthetic sequence, that is, one prepared according to standard procedures, e.g. as described in Matches et al., 1984, (ref. 13). Finally, the nucleotide sequence may be a mixed genomic and synthetic or mixed cDNA and synthetic sequence prepared by ligating DNA fragments of genomic, cDNA or synthetic origin (as appropriate) which DNA fragments each contain part of the nucleotide sequence encoding the toxin, in accordance with established methods.

In accordance with the explanation given above, the DNA fragment may be one which has been modified by substitution, addition, insertion or deletion of one or more nucleotides in the sequence with the purpose of establishing a sequence which, when expressed, results in the production of a detoxified toxin or toxin analogue.

In particular, the invention relates to a DNA fragment which comprises a nucleotide sequence substantially as shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) or a modification thereof as indicated above. The sequence coding for the full-length toxin starts at position 219 (or 213) of the sequence shown in the figure, while the end of the sequence is at position 4073. The DNA sequence shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) has been established by well-known methods as described in Example 7 below.

The DNA fragment of the invention may further comprise a nucleotide sequence encoding another polypeptide fused to the nucleotide sequence encoding the toxin or toxin analogue with the purpose of producing a fused polypeptide, as explained above. A further purpose of preparing a fused polypeptide may be to facilitate purification of the toxin. In this case, the fused sequence may be inserted into an appropriate vector which is transformed to a suitable host microorganism which is grown under conditions ensuring expression of the fused sequence after which the fused polypeptide is recovered from the culture by subjecting the fused polypeptide to affinity chromatography involving an antibody or any other ligand reacting with the second polypeptide. After purification, the second polypeptide may then be removed, for instance by suitable proteolytic cleavage followed by separation of the two polypeptides.

In a further aspect, the invention relates to an expression vector which is capable of replicating in a host microorganism and which carries a DNA fragment as described above. The vector may either be one which is capable of autonomous replication, such as a plasmid, or one which is replicated with the host chromosome, such as a bacteriophage. Specific examples of expression vectors of the invention are the plasmids pSPE A-R described in Example 9 below and shown in the appended FIG.13.

In a still further aspect, the invention relates to a microorganism which is capable of expressing a DNA fragment as defined above and which carries a vector as described above. The microorganism is preferably a bacterium, especially a gramnegative bacterium such as E. coli.

The invention also relates to a method of producing an immunogenic detoxified P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue, the method comprising

a) isolating a nucleotide sequence coding for the P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue,

b) inserting said sequence, optionally in suitably modified form resulting in the expression of the detoxified toxin or toxin analogue or a subsequence coding for an immunogenic subsequence of the toxin to toxin analogue, in an expression vector,

c) transforming a suitable host microorganism with the vector produced in step b),

d) cultivating the microorganism produced in step c) under suitable conditions for expressing the toxin or toxin analogue,

e) harvesting the toxin or toxin analogue from the culture, and

f) optionally subjecting the toxin to posttranslational modifications to produce the detoxified toxin or toxin analogue.

In step a) of the method, the nucleotide sequence may for instance be isolated by establishing a P. multocida gene library and screening for toxin-positive clones in accordance with established methods as indicated above as well as described in detail in Example 4 below.

In step b) of the method, the modification of the sequence optionally carried out may be performed before or after the sequence has been inserted in the vector. The modification may comprise substitution, addition, insertion or deletion of one or more nucleotides in the sequence or a combination thereof, as explained above.

The transformation in step c) of the method may be carried out by standard procedures, such as disclosed in Maniatis et al. (ref 14).

The cultivation of the host microorganism in step d) of the method may be carried out in a culture medium conventionally used for fermentation purposes, e.g. Luria Broth medium, and under conditions with respect to pH, temperature, aeration, etc. suited to the type of microorganism in question. e.g. as disclosed in Maniatis et al. (ref. 14).

In step e) of the method, the harvesting of the toxin or toxin analogue may proceed by well-known methods such as by precipitation, gel filtration, ion exchange or HPLC reverse phase chromatography or immunoaffinity chromatography.

If the nucleotide sequence coding for the toxin or toxin analogue has not been modified in step b) of the method to result in expression of the detoxified toxin or toxin analogue, the toxin or toxin analogue should be subjected to posttranslational modifications in step f) of the method, for instance thermal treatment, treatment with a chemical such as formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde or a suitable proteolytic zyme, e.g. trypsin. or substitution, addition, insertion or deletion of one or more amino acids in the toxin or toxin analogue.

In a still further aspect, the invention concerns a method of producing a vaccine for immunizing an animal, including a human being, against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin, the method comprising formulating the toxin or toxin analogue produced by recombinant DNA techniques or by peptide synthesis as described above with an immunologically acceptable carrier or vehicle, such as those indicated above.

In a further, interesting aspect, the present invention relates to a non-pathogenic microorganism which carries and is capable of expressing an inserted nucleotide sequence coding for an immunogenic detoxified P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue for use as a live vaccine for the immunization of an animal against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin. The use of a live vaccine might be advantageous since there is some indication that vaccines based on living organisms show an excellent immunogenicity, often conferring a lifelong immunity against the disease in question. Live vaccines also tend to be less expensive to produce than those based on a purified protein, no purification step being required.

In order to provide expression of the toxin or toxin analogue in detoxified form, the nucleotide sequence coding for the toxin or toxin analogue may be suitably modified, either before or after introduction into the host microorganism, by substitution, addition, insertion or deletion of one or more nucleotides in the sequence or a combination of these measures, as explained above.

In a particularly advantageous embodiment of the live vaccine of the invention, the nucleotide sequence coding for the toxin or toxin analogue is expressed on the outer surface of the host cell. This provides a favorable presentation of the toxin epitope(s) which will be recognized by the immune defense mechanisms of the animal to which the live vaccine is administered, thus provoking an appropriate immune response. One way of providing the expression of the toxin or toxin analogue on the cell surface is to fuse the nucleotide sequence encoding the toxin or toxin analogue to another nucleotide sequence encoding a surface protein or a subsequence thereof (e.g. a signal peptide) which cause the toxin or toxin analogue to be expressed on the outer surface of the host cell, optionally as a fused polypeptide. Examples of useful surface proteins are adhesins, fimbrial proteins, e.g. the E. coli K88 or Type 1 fimbrial protein, or the LamB protein of E. coli.

The invention also relates to the use of a recombinant, detoxified immunogenic P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue for preparing a vaccine for the immunization of an animal, including a human being, against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin. The toxin or toxin analogue used for immunization may be one encoded by the DNA sequence shown in FIG.10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) or a modification thereof as explained above.

Similarly, the present invention relates to a method of immunizing an animal, including a human being, against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin, the method comprising administering to the animal an immunogenically effective amount of a recombinant detoxified immunogenic P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue, such as the one encoded by the DNA sequence shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) or a modification thereof. The toxin or toxin analogue may be administered intravenously, intramuscularly, subcutaneously, intraperitoneally, orally or intranasally. It is contemplated that a suitable dosage range will be 0.1-500 μg, dependent on the age and condition of the animal in question, the route and form of administration and the immunogenicity of the toxin or toxin analogue.

In a preferred embodiment, the monoclonal antibody of the present invention is one raised against the P. multocida toxin produced by P. multocida ssp. multocida 45/78, which is publicly available from the National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC), Central Public Health Laboratory, London, England, with the accession number NCTC 12178.

In connection with the research leading to the present invention, several different monoclonal antibodies to the toxin produced by this Pasteurella strain have been prepared (vide Example 1 below), representative examples of which are the ones produced by the hybridoma cell lines P3F37 and P3F51. Samples of these cell lines were deposited in accordance with the provisions of the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purpose of Patent Procedure, on 3 Dec., 1987, in the European Collection of Animal Cell Cultures (ECACC), Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research, Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire, Great Britain, with the accession numbers ECACC 87120301 and ECACC 87120302. respectively.

The monoclonal antibody of the invention may be prepared by a method comprising:

a) Immunizing a suitable animal or animal cell with an immunogenic P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue to obtain cells producing an antibody to said toxin or toxin analogue,

b) fusing cells producing the antibody with cells of a suitable myeloma cell line,and selecting and cloning the resulting hybridoma cells producing said antibody, or

c) immortalizing an unfused cell line producing said antibody, e.g. by viral transformation, followed by

d) growing the cells of step b) or c) in a suitable medium to produce said antibody and harvesting the antibody from the growth medium.

The initial immunization of the animals in step a) of the method requires a modification of the conventional method of producing monoclonal antibodies disclosed by Kohler. and Milstein, Nature 256, 1975, p. 495, since, PMT, even when it is administered to mice in sublethal doses, will cause an atrophy of the spleen which seriously complicates the hybridoma technique. The animals must therefore initially be immunized with a detoxified toxin preparation as it has been found that any subsequent booster immunizations may be carried out with the native toxin which need not be detoxified before use. The immunization may otherwise be carried out according to conventional procedures, e.g. by administering a solution or suspension of the (detoxified) toxin or toxin analogue in a suitable solvent such as isotonic saline or phosphate buffered saline optionally containing an adjuvant such as one of those indicated above. Animals suited for immunization purposes are, for instance, mice, rabbits, goats, sheep, guinea pigs. etc. The bleeding of the animals and recovery of the polyclonal antibodies may be performed by conventional procedures.

The antibody-producing cells used for fusion to the myeloma cells are preferably spleen or lymph cells (e.g. lymphoblasts, B-lymphocytes, plasma cells or related cells isolated from spleen, lymph nodes or functionally related tissues). The fusion of antibody-producing cells and myeloma cells may be performed substantially as described by Kohler and Milstein, supra, that is, preferably in the presence of a fusion promoter such as polyethylene glycol. A ratio of about 3 antibody-producing cells per myeloma cell is preferred. The myeloma cell line employed is preferably of a type unable to survive in selective medium and unable to produce immunoglobulins by itself; one type of cell line frequently used for cell fusions is one which lacks the enzyme hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase and which is consequently unable to grow in a medium containing hypoxanthine, aminopterin and thymidine (HAT medium).

The selection of hybridoma cells which produce an antitoxin-antibody may then be carried out by culturing unfused antibody-producing cells, unfused myeloma cells and supposedly fused cells in a selective medium (such as HAT) in which the unfused myeloma cells cannot grow and eventually die out. The unfused antibody-producing cells can only survive for a limited period of time after which they also die out. On the other hand, successfully fused cells continue to grow as they have inherited permanent growth properties from the parent myeloma cells and the ability to survive in the selective medium from the parent antibody-producing cells.

Alternatively to the production of hybridomas, immortalized unfused antibody-producing cells may be produced either by transferring the genes responsible for production of immunoglobulin from the hybridoma to another (more viable) cell line or by vital transformation as described by Klein et al., (ref. 16).

The resulting antibody-producing cells (whether hybridomas or unfused cells) may be grown in vitro after cloning, e.g. as described in Example 1 below, in a suitable medium, such as RPMI 1640. This results in the production of monoclonal antibodies of a very high purity as these are secreted into the culture supernatant by the cells. The antibodies may then be isolated by conventional methods such as centrifugation, filtration, precipitation, chromatography, or a combination thereof.

In an alternative method, the monoclonal antibodies may also be produced in the body cavity of an animal such as a mouse. In this embodiment, the antibody-producing cell is injected into an animal such as a mouse resulting in the formation of an ascites tumour which releases high concentrations of the antibody in the ascites of the animal. Although the animals will also produce normal antibodies, these will only amount to a minor percentage of the monoclonal antibodies which may be purified from ascites by standard purification procedures such as centrifugation, filtration, precipitation, chromatography or a combination thereof.

In a further aspect, the invention relates to a diagnostic agent which comprises a monoclonal antibody as defined above.

Although in some cases such as when the diagnostic agent is to be employed in an agglutination assay in which solid particles to which the antibody is coupled agglutinate in the presence of a P. multocida toxin in the sample subjected to testing, no labelling of the monoclonal antibody is necessary, it is preferred for most purposes to provide the antibody with a label in order to detect bound antibody. In a double antibody ("sandwich") assay, at least one of the antibodies may be provided with a label. Substances useful as labels in the present context may be selected from enzymes, fluorescers, radioactive isotopes and complexing agents such as biotin.

Examples of enzymes which may be used as label substances are peroxidases, e.g. horseradish peroxidase, or phosphatases. e.g. alkaline phosphatases. As enzymes are not directly detectable, they must be combined with a substrate to form a detectable reaction product which may, for instance, be fluorescent or coloured. Examples of useful substrates are H₂ O₂ /o-phenylene diamine, H₂ O₂ /azinodiethylbenzthiazoline sulphonic acid and p-nitrophenylphosphate.

Examples of fluorescers useful as label substances are H₂ O₂ /p-hydroxyphenylacetic acid and methylumbelliferyl phosphate. Such substances may be detected by means of a fluorescence spectrophotometer in a manner known per se.

Examples of radioactive isotopes useful as label substances are I-125, S-35 and P-32. The radioactivity emitted by these isotopes may be measured in a gamma-counter or a scintillation counter in a manner known per se.

In a favoured embodiment, the diagnostic agent comprises at least one antibody covalently or non-covalently coupled to a solid support. This may be used in a double antibody assay in which case the antibody coupled to the solid support is not labelled. The solid support may be composed of a polymer or may comprise a matrix on which the polymer is applied. The solid support may be selected from a plastic, e.g. latex, polystyrene, polyvinylchloride, nylon, polyvinylidene difluoride, cellulose, e.g. nitrocellulose and magnetic carrier particles (e.g. iron particles coated with polystyrene).

For use in a diagnostic assay, the solid support may have any convenient shape. Thus, it may be in the form of a plate, e.g. a thin layer or, preferably, microtiter plate, a strip, film, paper or solid particles such as latex beads or the like.

Rather than being coupled directly to the solid support, the monoclonal antibody may be coupled to a ligand immobilized on a solid support. Examples of ligands include Protein A, or an immunoglobulin-specific antibody.

It should be noted that practically all methods or applications based on intact monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies could instead be performed using fragments of the monoclonal or polyclonal antibody, e.g. F(ab')₂ or Fab fragments (cf. Goding, 1978 (ref. 17).

For use in a sandwich assay, the diagnostic agent may additionally comprise a polyclonal antibody. This antibody may be labelled and/or coupled to a solid support as described above in connection with the monoclonal antibody.

The monoclonal antibody of the invention may be used in a method of determining the presence of a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue in a sample, the method comprising incubating the sample with a monoclonal antibody as described above and detecting the presence of bound toxin or toxin analogue resulting from said incubation. The antibody may be provided with a label as explained above and/or may be bound to a solid support as exemplified above.

In a favoured embodiment of the method, the sample is incubated with a first monoclonal antibody coupled to a solid support and subsequently with a second monoclonal or polyclonal antibody provided with a label. An example of this embodiment is the sandwich ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay) assay described in Example 2 below.

In an alternative embodiment (a so-called competitive binding assay), the sample may be incubated with a monoclonal antibody coupled to a solid support and simultaneously or subsequently with a labelled P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue the latter competing for binding sites on the antibody with any toxin or toxin analogue present in the sample.

The sample subjected to the present method may be any sample suspected of containing a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue. Thus, the sample may be selected from bacterial suspensions, bacterial extracts, culture supernatants, animal body fluids (e.g. serum, colostrum or nasal mucous) and intermediate or final vaccine products.

Apart from the diagnostic use of the monoclonal antibody of the invention, it is contemplated to utilize the well-known ability of certain monoclonal antibodies to inhibit or block the activity of biologically active antigens by incorporating the monoclonal antibody in a composition for the passive immunization of an animal, including a human being, against diseases caused by microorganisms producing an osteolytic toxin, which comprises a monoclonal antibody as described above and a suitable carrier or vehicle. The composition may be prepared by combining an effective immunizing amount of the antibody or fragment thereof with a suitable carrier or vehicle. Examples of suitable carriers and vehicles may be the ones discussed above in connection with the vaccine of the invention. The composition may further comprise an adjuvant such as one of those indicated above.

Based on experiments with mice (cf. Example 11 below) where the monoclonal antibody induced passive immunity against PMT, it is contemplated that a PMT-specific antibody may be used for prophylactic or therapeutic treatment of atrophic rhinitis in pigs. It may be administered intravenously, subcutaneously or intramuscularly as well as orally in suitably protected form or by means of an intranasal aerosol.

A further use of the monoclonal antibody of the invention is in a method of isolating a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue, the method comprising adsorbing a biological material containing said toxin or toxin analogue to a matrix comprising an immobilized monoclonal antibody as described above, eluting said toxin or toxin analogue from said matrix and recovering said toxin or toxin analogue from the eluate.

The matrix may be composed of any suitable material usually employed for affinity chromatographic purposes such as agarose, dextran, controlled pore glass, DEAE cellulose, optionally activated by means of CNBr, divinylsulphone, etc. in a manner known per se.

The present invention further relates to a diagnostic agent for the detection of PMT-producing microorganisms, which comprises a labelled DNA sequence homologous with a DNA sequence coding for a Pasterurella multocida toxin or toxin analogue. In this context, the tea "homologous with" is intended to indicate than the DNA sequence comprises at least one stretch of deoxyribonucleotides of at least 15 bases with 80% homology to a part of the shown sequence or to a part of the sequence encoding a toxin analogue.

In a method employing the diagnostic agent, probe DNA is labelled, and the DNA is denatured to separate the strands in both probe and sample DNA; the DNAs are mixed and the strands are left to reform the double helical structure, but in case of homology, some of the probe DNA will have combined with the sample DNA. This is known as hybridization and is described by for instance Southern, 1980, (ref. 18). The DNA used as the probe should have a unique nucleotide sequence of a certain length in order to be sufficiently specific as a diagnostic agent. The probe DNA may advantageously be labelled with a radioactive isotope such as H-3, I-125, S-35 or P-32 as described e.g. by Rigby et al., 1977, (ref. 19); a complexing agent such as biotin (Gebeyechu et al., 1987, (ref. 20); or with digoxygenin-dUTP according to the method described by the manufacturer of the reagent, Boehringer, Mannheim.

In a particular embodiment of the invention, detection of the presence of Pasteurella multocida toxin producing microorganisms in a sample is performed by use of a DNA probe in the polymerase chain reaction procedure described by Seiki et al., 1985, (ref. 21). The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a procedure used for the amplification of DNA present in a sample. The procedure involves the use of two oligonucleotide primers which flank the DNA segment to be amplified. The oligonucleotide primers may e.g. comprise the regions of the gene coding for Pasteurella multocida toxin or toxin analogue and may thus be used to amplify the said gene or part of it present in a sample. The oligonucleotide primers hybridize to opposite strands of the DNA sequence to be amplified, and the primers are extended by using DNA polymerase, e.g. the Klenow fragment of E.coli DNA polymerase I or another useful DNA polymerase such as the Taq DNA polymerase, so as to synthesize a DNA sequence which is complementary to the DNA sequence to which the primers are annealed. Subsequent to the synthesis of these complementary sequences, the DNA synthesized is denatured, e.g. by heating, from the "parent DNA strings", and the parent strings as well as the newly synthesized DNA strings are subjected to a new PCR amplification cycle. In this manner, it is possible to obtain a substantial amplification of specific DNA sequences which are present in a sample. By use of the PCR amplification method, it may be possible to amplify and then detect originally very small and undetectable amounts of DNA sequences present in a sample.

In a still further aspect, the present invention relates to a method of determining the presence of antibodies against a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue in a sample, the method comprising incubating the sample with a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue and detecting the presence of bound antibody resulting from said incubation.

A diagnostic agent comprising the toxin or toxin analogue used in this method may otherwise exhibit any of the features described above for diagnostic agents comprising the monoclonal antibody and be used in similar detection methods although these will detect bound antibody rather than bound toxin as such. The diagnostic agent may be useful, for instance as a reference standard or to detect anti-toxin antibodies in body fluids, e.g. serum, colostrum or nasal mucous, from animals exposed to the toxin or toxin analogue.

A still further use of a P. multocida toxin or toxin analogue is for the preparation of a toxin reference standard which may be useful, as a standard of comparison in qualitative or quantitative analytical procedures. In a qualitative procedure, the standard toxin in a known concentration may be reacted with a monoclonal or a polyclonal antibody raised against the toxin or toxin analogue, a positive reaction indicating the specificity of the antibodies. In another aspect, the reference standard preparation is applied in a quantitative analytical procedure by which different concentrations of the preparation is reacted with a monoclonal or a polyclonal antibody in order to provide a calibration curve which may allow the precise amount of toxin or toxin analogue in a sample to be estimated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is further disclosed in the following with reference to the drawings in which

FIG. 1 is a graph showing the titration of PMT in a quantitative sandwich ELISA. The absorbance at 492 nm obtained in the ELISA is plotted against the PMT concentration. The minimum detectable concentration of PMT is about 1 ng/ml corresponding to about 50 pg or 0.35 fmol.

FIG. 2 shows an SDS-PAGE of fractions from the affinity chromatography described in Example 3. Lane A: the culture supernatant applied on the column, lane O: the effluent from the column, lane E: the eluted purified PMT, and lane M: molecular weight marker proteins,

FIG. 3 is a Western blot showing PMT production by the 5 positive recombinant E. Coli clones detected in the screening procedure. Lane 1: SPE 301; lanes 2 and 3: SPE 308; lane 4: SPE 315; lanes 5 and 6: SPE 312; lane 7: SPE 311; lane 8: purified PMT.

FIG. 4 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of the plasmid pSPE 308 with a length of 21.5 kb (kilobase pairs), The hatched area denotes P. multocida DNA, the shaded area denotes the pmt gene and the vertically hatched area denotes plasmid pUN121 DNA.

FIG. 5 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of the plasmid pSPE 312 with a length of 13.8 kb. The hatched area denotes P. multocida DNA, the shaded area denotes the pmt gene and the vertically hatched area denotes plasmid pUN121 DNA.

FIG. 6 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of plasmids constructed by enzymatic cleavage of the plasmid pSPE 308. The hatched area denotes P. multocida DNA, the shaded area denotes the pmt gene, and the vertically hatched area denotes pUN121DNA.

FIG. 7 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of plasmids constructed by enzymatic cleavage of pSPE 312. The hatched area denotes P. multocida DNA, the vertically hatched area denotes pUN121 DNA, and the shaded area denotes the pmt gene.

FIG. 8 is a Western blot showing PMT production by derivatives of plasmids pSPE 308 and pSPE 312. Lane 1: purified PMT; lane 2: pSPE 350; lane 3: pSPE 349; lane 4: pSPE 341; lane 5: pSPE 345; lane 6: pSPE 312; lanes 7 and 8: purified PMT. Plasmid pSPE 349 is identical to plasmid pSPE 347 shown in FIG. 7.

FIG. 9 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of the pmt gene. The shaded area denotes the pmt gene, the vertically hatched area denotes a probable promoter, and the hatched area denotes a probable terminator.

FIG. 10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) shows the DNA sequence of the pmt gene region and the amino acid sequence deduced on the basis of the DNA sequence. The amino acids are identified with single-letter codes according to conventional usage. The amino acid sequence has been shown to start at position 213 or 219.

FIG. 11 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of the plasmid pSPE 525 with a length of 7.7 kb. The hatched area denotes P. multocida DNA the shaded area denotes the pmt gene, and the vertically hatched area denotes pUN121DNA.

FIG. 12 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of the expression vector pSPE 481 with a length of 8.25 kb. The hatched (towards the right) area denotes P. multocida DNA, the shaded area denotes the pmt gene, the hatched (towards the left) area denotes λP_(L) DNA the cross-hatched area denotes the amp gene, and the vertically hatched area denotes the origin of replication.

FIG. 13 is a restriction enzyme cleavage map of the toxA coding region. Extension of coding region present on each derivative plasmid (pSPE A-R) is indicated (A-R) by bars. Hatched bars: Coding region in correct reading frame; open bars: Coding region not in frame with the 5' part of the coding region.

FIG. 14 is a Western blot showing the recognition by a mouse anti-PMT antiserum of PMT derivatives produced by the plasmids pSPE A-L. Lanes 7, 13, 14 and 15: different strains harbouring the entire pmt gene; lane 1: derivative A: lane 2: derivative I; lane 3: derivative B; lane 4: derivative J; lane 5: derivative L; lanes 6 and 9: derivative E; lane 8: derivative C; lane 10: derivative G; lane 11: derivative H; lane 12: derivative D. Approximate sizes (in kilodalton) of prominent full-length derivatives and degradation products are indicated.

FIG. 15 is a graph showing the distribution of relative absorbances (A/A_(o)) by PMT-ELISA of extracts of non-cytopathic (hatched bars) and cytopathic (black bars) field isolates of P. multocida diluted 1:1 in PBS-T-BSA.

FIG. 16 is a graph showing the mean ±SD of relative absorbances (A/A_(o)) of dilutions of extracts of cytopathic (black squares) and non-cytopathic (open squares) field isolates of P. multocida.

FIG. 17 is a graph showing the presence of anti-PMT-antibodies in serum samples from anti-PMT-antibody-negative, infected and vaccinated pigs detected by competive ELISA. The graph shows the 50% blocking titers at an absorbance of 492 nm.

. . negative

- - - infected

₋₋ vaccinated

FIG. 18 shows the colony hybridization of P. multocida isolates, testing 17 toxin-positive and 18-toxin-negative strains as determined by the ELISA and EBL cell tests for the presence of the pmt gene.

FIG. 19 a-c shows the determination of toxic activities of cell-free sonicates of recombinant E.coli clones. E.coli strain MT102 with PUN121 had no cytopathic effect on EBL-cells when diluted 1/25 in PBS (a). Sonicates of E.coli SPE312 (b) and toxigenic P. multocida (NCTC 12178) (c) diluted 1/3125 showed significant and identical effects (80 X magnification).

FIG. 20 shows the P. multocida DNA flanking the pmt-gene (black area). The extension of the inserts of the plasmids pSPE308, pSPE312, pSPE344, pLOA03 and pLOB03 are indicated. The DNA contained in the probes used for the blotting (slant hatched area). and the fragments which contain the two homologous sequences (vertically hatched area) are shown.

FIG. 21 shows a Southern blot of restriction enzyme digested P. multocida DNA. Probe: 2,4 kb Bg1II-EcoRI fragment of pLOB03. lanes 10*-14* is a short time exposure of lanes 10-14.

Lanes 1-4: Toxigenic P. multocida 45/78. Lanes 5-9: Nontoxtgenic P. multocida MH81 P8. Lane 10: pSPE308. Lane 11: pLOA03. Lane 12: pLOA02. Lane 13: pSPE312. Lane 14: pLOB03.

Restriction enzymes used: HindIII: Lanes 1, 5, 10, 11, 12 and 13.

EcoRI: Lanes 2, 6 and 14. Bg1II: Lanes 3 and 7. PvuII: Lanes 4 and 8.

PstI: Lane 9.

FIG. 22 shows a dot blot of 24 different P. multocida bacteriophage genomes. Probe: pLOA03. The probe does not hybridize to B2 and C5. A7: pSPE308; B7: pSPE312, C7:pLOA03 and D7:pLOB03 are positive controls.

EXAMPLE 1 Preparation of monoclonal antibodies against P. multocida toxin Immunization

P. multocida toxin (PMT) was purified as described by Foged et al. (ref. 6), i.e., by 50% (NH₄)2SO₄ -precipitation of a cell-free extract of the toxigenic type D strain of P. multocida ssp. multocida 5/78 (refs. 3, 22) followed by DEAE-Sephacel® chromatography and preparative polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) in a manner known per se.

A suspension of the (NH₄)₂ SO₄ -precipitate prepared as described above and containing approx. 25 μg/ml of PMT was detoxified by incubation with 0.37% formaldehyde at 37° C. for 1 h. Female BALB/c mice (8-12 weeks old) were immunized subcutaneously on day 0 and 14 with 300 μl of a 1:1 dilution of the crude preparation of detoxified P. multocida toxin and Freund's incomplete adjuvant (day 0) or PBS (day 14). On day 30 and 45 1 μg of native PMT in 200 μl PBS was injected subcutaneously and on day 60 the mice were boosted intravenously with 0.5 μg of PMT in 100 μl PBS. Three days after the booster injection the mice were sacrified and their spleens removed for fusion.

Production of hybridoma cell lines and monoclonal antibodies

According to procedures described by Fazetas et al. (ref. 23) and Gebeychu et al. (ref. 20), the spleen cells and P3-X63-Ag8.653 myeloma cells were fused using 50% PEG 4000 GK (Merck) and the resulting hybridoma cells were grown selectively in hypoxanthine/aminopterin/-thymine (HAT) -supplemented RPMI 1640 medium containing 15% fetal calf serum (FCS) and 4% human endothelial cell supernatant (Costar, The Netherlands).

Hybridoma cell lines were selected by analyzing their respective monoclonal antibodies by ELISA and immunoblotting.

ELISA for detection and titration of monoclonal antibodies

Microtitre plates (96-well Immuno Plate II Nunc, Denmark) were coated with 50 μl/well of a 0.75 μg/ml solution of purified PMT in PBS at 4° C. for 16 h. and at 20° C. for 1 h. The wells were emptied and blocked with 200 μl PBS-T-BSA (PBS containing 0 05% (v/v) Tweene®20 and 1% (w/v) bovine serum albumin) per well at 20° C. for 1 h., then washed 3 times with PBS-T. Fifty μl/well of hybridoma culture supernatant was applied at 20° C. for 1 h., and the plates were washed as described above. The anti-PMT antibody activity was measured colorimetrically after incubating at 20° C. for 1 h. with 50 μl/well of sheep anti-mouse immunoglobulin conjugated with horseradish peroxidase (Amersham International, U.K.) diluted 1:1,500 in PBS-T-BSA and (after 3 further PBS-T washes as above) with 50 μl of an o-phenylene diamine (OPD)-H.sub. 2 O₂ substrate solution. The reaction was stopped with 150 μl of 2 M H₂ SO₄ after 5 min. and absorbance was determined in a Kontron SLT-210 photometer (SLT Lab-instr., Zurich, Switzerland) at 492 nm (ref. 620 nm).

The mean absorbance at the saturation level of the titration curve (A_(sat)) and the mean concentration of the MAb that resulted in 50% of the A_(sat) (C50%) was determined by ELISA as described above, except that serial dilutions of the protein-A purified MAb in PBS-T-BSA was used. All results were based on at least duplicate determinations.

Immunoblotting

To determine the specificity of the monoclonal antibodies, the proteins contained in a crude cell-free extract of P. multocida 5/78, were separated by SDS-PAGE before transfer to a nitrocellulose membrane and immunological detection. Polyacrylamide gels (total acrylamide: 10%, relative bis-acrylamide: 3%) and an electrophoresis buffer were prepared according to Laemmli (ref. 24). Electrophoresis was performed vertically at 10° C. at a constant voltage of 60 V for 16 h. or 250 V for 4 h. Protein-bands on gels were either visualized by silver staining with a detection limit of less than 1 ng of protein per band (8) or transferred to a nitrocellulose membrane (0.45 μm) using a semidry electroblotter (Artcos, .0.lstykke, Denmark (9)). The proteins on the nitrocellulose membrane were either detected by a colloidal gold silver enhancement staining method (detection limit: approx. 0.5 ng of protein per band) (ref. 25) or immunologically by a modification of the method previously described by Bjerrum et al. (ref. 26). A positive reaction in immunoblotting was recorded as + or (+), when an intense (or weak) staining of the PMT-band but no other protein band was observed. Staining of other bands or no reaction was recorded as -.

The molecular weight of PMT was estimated by comparison with known markers: ovalbumin (43.0 kd), BSA (66.3 kd), phosphorylase B (97.4 kd), β-galactosidase (116.2 kd), RNA-polymerase β(150.6 kd) and β'(155.2 kd) and myosin (approx. 200 kd).

ELISA for estimating epitope specificity

Estimation of apparent epitope specificity of anti-PMT MAbs was done by a competitive ELISA similar to a method described by Anderson et al. (ref. 27). Microtitre plates were coated with PMT and blocked as described above. Fifty μl of the competing MAb diluted to 10 μg/ml in PBS-T-BSA was added and incubated for 1 h. at 20° C. Without aspiration of the wells 25 μl biotinylated monoclonal antibody was added and the mixture was incubated for 20 min. at 20° C. After washings 50 μl of a 1:2,500 dilution of horseradish peroxidase-conjugated avidin (Kem-En-Tec, Denmark) was added and the plates incubated for 45 min. at 20° C. The substrate, reaction time and determination of absorbance were as described above.

The biotinylated MAb was used at a working dilution resulting in approx. 75% of the absorbance at the saturation level on the titration curve. This curve was obtained by using a diluent instead of the competing MAb and serial dilutions of the biotinylated MAb. The extent of blocking by a competitive MAb was calculated according to the formula (1-A/A_(o))×100%, where A is the mean of the absorbance for three wells with the competing MAb and A_(o) is the mean of the absorbance of eight wells containing diluent instead of the competing MAb.

The date of 10 representative monoclonal antibodies (Mabs), all of the IgG₁ subclass, out of 92 ELISA-positive supernatants are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

                  TABLE 1                                                          ______________________________________                                         Characterization of 10 representative MAbs                                     Hybridoma                                                                               Represen-         .sup.C 50%                                          group No.                                                                               tative MAb                                                                               A.sub.sat                                                                              ng/ml  Immunoblotting                               ______________________________________                                         1        P3F51     1.2     110    +                                            2        P3F64     0.4     250    +                                            3        P3F37     0.7      30    (+)                                          4        P4F58     0.7     110    +                                            5        P3F22     0.6      35    +                                            6        P4F46     1.3      55    +                                            7        P4F38     1.9      40    +                                            8        P4F55     1.3      33    +                                            9        P3F50     1.8     315    +                                            10       P3F53     0.9     300    (+)                                          ______________________________________                                          a) A.sub.sat is the mean absorbance at 492 nm at the saturation level in       the ELISA titration.                                                     

                                      TABLE 2                                      __________________________________________________________________________     Extent of blocking by 10 representative MAbs in the competitive ELISA          Competing MAb                                                                             Biotinylated detector MAb (% decrease in A.sub.o.sup.a)             (hybridoma group No.                                                                      1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10                                       __________________________________________________________________________     P3F51 (1)  92 b                                                                P3F64 (2)     95 44                                                            P3F37 (3)     63 95 78                                                         P4F58 (4)        91 96 73                                                      P3F22 (5)           71 88                                                      P4F46.sup.c                                                                          (6)                 92 90 93 16                                          P4F38.sup.c                                                                          (7)                 93 92 95 27                                          P4F55.sup.c                                                                          (8)                 92 92 95 15                                          P3F50 (9)                 16 24 13 84 91                                       P3F53 (10)                         56 83                                             A.sub.o                                                                             1.43                                                                              0.19                                                                              0.53                                                                              0.80                                                                              0.64                                                                              0.64                                                                              0.85                                                                              1.01                                                                              0.26                                                                              0.52                                     __________________________________________________________________________      a) A.sub.o is the mean absorbance with diluent instead of competing MAb        b) No blocking (between 12% increase and 9% decrease in A.sub.o)               c) The closely related hybridoma groups 6, 7 and 8 were differentiated by      a twosite competitive ELISA using a catching MAb (method not described).       Results indicated that group 6 was related to groups 3 and 4, group 7 to       no other groups and group 8 to group 1.                                  

The selected hybridoma cell lines were then cloned until they were stable. The resulting clones were then grown in "cell factories" (Nunc, Denmark) at 37° C. in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% FCS as well as injected about 5×10⁶ cells/mouse into Balb/c mice which after a certain incubation time leads to the formation of a tumour in the peritoneum of the mouse releasing high quantities of antibody in its ascites (about 5-10 ml containing 5-25 mg/ml).

The hybridoma cell culture supernatants were passed through a protein A agarose column (Kem-En-Tec, Denmark). Bound antibodies were eluted with 0.05M acetic acid, pH 4.0, or 0.03M citric acid, pH 3.0, and immediately neutralized with an appropriate buffer. Purified antibodies were biotinylated as described by Guesdon et al., 1979, (ref. 28).

Two hybridoma cell lines, P3F37 and P3F51 shown in Table 1 to produce MAb, were deposited on 3 Dec., 1987 in the European Collection of Animal Cell Cultures, Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research. Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4OJG, U.K., with the Accession numbers ECACC 87120301 and ECACC 87120302, respectively.

EXAMPLE 2 Quantification of PMT

Quantification of PET was carried out by a sandwich ELISA procedure. The sandwich ELISA was initiated by coating each well of a microtitre plate (96 wells Immuno Plate II, Nunc, Denmark) with 50 μl of 2 μg/ml of the anti-PMT MAb, P3F51 (produced in Example 1) in 0.05M carbonate buffer, pH 9.6 for 16 hours at 4° C. and 1 hour at 20° C. Each well was incubated for 1 hour with 200 μl of phosphate-buffered saline containing 0.05% Tween 20 and 1% bovine serum albumine (PBS-T-BSA). The plates could be stored for at least 6 months by applying 20 μl/well of PBS-sorbitol and sealing with adhesive tape. The analysis was initiated by two PBS-T washings followed by incubation of 50 μl/well of solutions expected to contain PMT. The solutions were appropriately diluted in PBS-T-BSA and incubated for I hour at 20° C. After 3 PBS-T washings each well was incubated with 50 μl of 0.5 μg/ml of the biotin conjugated MAb, P3F37, for 1 hour at 20° C. followed by another 3 PBS-T washings and incubation with 50 μl/well of a 1:2,500 dilution of horseradish-peroxidase conjugated avidin (Kem-En-Tec, Denmark) for 45 min. at 20° C. Finally, 50 μl/well of an o-phonylene diamine/H₂ O₂ solution was added. The reaction was stopped with 2M H₂ SO₄ after 5 min. and absorbance was determined in an Kontron SLT-210 photometer (SLT Labinstr., Zurich, Switzerland) at 492 nm (ref. 620 nm).

Calibration was performed with a PMT-preparation quantified by amino acid analysis (ref. 6) and all quantitative data were means of at least dual determinations.

Using a sandwich ELISA, with the MAb P3F51 as catching antibody and biotinylated Mab P3F37 as detecting antibody, it was possible to detect less than 50 pg of PMT in a 50 μl sample. PMT at a concentration of 1 ng/ml resulted in an A₄₉₂ of approx. 0.1 corresponding to more than 8 times the background absorbance (cf. FIG. 1).

EXAMPLE 3 Affinity purification of PMT

About 100 mg of the protein-A purified MAb P3F51 prepared as described in Example 1 was coupled to 40 ml divinyl sulphone agarose (Mini-Leak, Kem-En-Tec, Denmark) as described by the manufacturer and loaded on a column (2.5×10 cm). The supernatant obtained by cultivation of the toxigenic type D strain P. multocida 45/78 was centrifuged (12,000×g for 30 min. at 4° C.), filtered (Gelman, 0.45 μm), mixed with 1/10 vol. of 1 M Tris-HCl, pH 7.7 and NaCl was added to 0.5 M before application to the affinity column. Repeated washings before elution of the column were carried out with an 0.1M Tris-HCl buffer containing first 1% Triton® X-100, then 1.5 M NaCl and finally 0.1 M NaCl. All washing buffers contained 0.1% sodium azide and had a pH of 7.8. The PMT was eluted by 0.1M glycine-HCl, pH 2.8 and immediately neutralized with 1M K₂ HPO₄, pH 9.0.

The presence of PMT in the culture supernatant applied to the affinity column was indicated by the approx. 143 kd protein band seen by SDS-PAGE (FIG. 2). The staining pattern of proteins in the material passing through the column (i.e. the effluent) was identical to that seen with material before application, except for the 143 kd protein, which was retained on the column. Accordingly, the approx. 143 kd protein band is the only staining seen when the protein composition of the eluted material is visualized by SDS-PAGE (FIG. 2).

Approx. 2.67 mg of the 3.4 mg of PMT applied to the column was eluted in a final volume of 8 ml resulting in a 78% yield by affinity chromatography (Table 3). Nearly all the remaining 22% of PMT applied was eluted in fractions with PMT-concentrations below 50 μg/ml.

The specific purity (μg PMT/mg protein) was 284 times higher in the eluted material than in the culture supernatant (Table 3).

The average minimal dermonecrotic dose of affinity purified PMT in guinea pigs after intradermal injection and the average MCD of for embryonic bovine lung (EBL) cells in the standardized EBL-cell test (ref. 29) was approx. 35 ng and 30 pg, respectively. The LD₅₀ of PMT in BALB/c mice was 20 to 40 ng (corresponding to approx. 1.5 μg/kg) and in Wistar rats approx. 100 ng (corresponding to 0.5 μg/kg) when administered intraperitoneally in a single dose.

                  TABLE 3                                                          ______________________________________                                         Purification of PMT by affinity chromatography                                          Vol.  Protein PMT     Purifica-                                                                            Recovery                                           (ml)  (mg)    (mg)    factor                                                                               of PMT, %                                 ______________________________________                                         Applied culture                                                                           13,200  970     3.41   1    100                                     supernatant from                                                               P. multocida                                                                   45/78                                                                          Effluent from                                                                             13,200  970     <0.01 N.D..sup.a                                                                           <0.35                                   affinity column                                                                Eluted material                                                                           8       N.D.    2.67  284.sup.b                                                                            78                                      ______________________________________                                          a) N.D. not determined                                                         b) Estimated on the assumption of purity of PMT in the eluted material.  

EXAMPLE 4 Establishment of a P. multocida gene library in Escherichia coli Donor strain

P. multocida strain 45/78. The strain produces a dermonecrotic toxin as described by Foged et al. (ref. 6).

Recipient strain

Escherichia coli K-12 strain MT102. Genotype: thi, araD139, (araleu)Δ7697, lacΔX74, ga1U, rpsL, hsdR. This strain was constructed (by Mogens Trier Hnasen, Novo Industri A/S, Denmark) as follows: ##STR1##

    ______________________________________                                                                    REFERENCE OR                                        STRAIN GENOTYPE            SOURCE                                              ______________________________________                                         MC1000 araD139, Δ(ara--Leu)7697,                                                                    a)                                                         ΔlacX74, galU, galK, rpsL.                                        So1386 leu, Δ(deoO-deoC), Tn10-6                                                                    b)                                                         (91% co-transducible with deo                                           MT85   araD139, Δ(ara--leu)7697,                                                                    c)                                                         ΔlacX74, galU, galK, rpsL,                                               Tn10-6, Δ(deoO-deoC)                                              ≠804                                                                            met, supF, r-, m+, Δ(gal--lac)                                                               d)                                                  ______________________________________                                          b) from Bente Mygind, Laboratoriet for Biologisk Kemi B, University of         Copenhagen, Denmark.                                                           c) constructed by Mogens Trier Hansen as shown above.                          a): Casadaban and Cohen, 1980, (ref. 30).                                      d) Wood, 1966 (ref. 31).                                                 

Media

P. multocida was grown in Tryptic Soy Broth purchased from DIFCO. E. coli ws grown in LB medium (ref. 27).

Restriction enzymes and T4 DNA ligase were obtained from New England Biolabs and used as recommended by the manufacturer.

DNA extraction

To isolate chromosomal DNA from P. multocida strain 45/78, cells from a 250 ml overnight stationary culture were resuspended in 10 ml 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, 100 mM EDTA, and incubated with 25 mg lysozyme for 20 minutes at 37° C. 2 ml of 10% (w/v) SDS were added to the mixture which was mixed and put on ice for 10 minutes. To the solution was then added 15 ml of phenol saturated with TE-buffer (10 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0, l mM EDTA), after which it was heated to 65° C., mixed gently and cooled on ice. After centrifugation for 30 minutes at 4000×g the aqueous phase was extracted with ether and ethanol precipitated, and the pellet resuspended in TE-buffer. The DNA was further purified by banding in a CsCl density gradient (ref. 27). After purification, the DNA was resuspended in 1 ml TE-buffer.

Preparation of clonable DNA fragments

9-22 kilobase pair (kb) DNA fragments with 5'GATC overhangs were prepared in the following way. Chromosomal DNA prepared as described above was digested partially by incubation with the restriction endonuclease Sau3A. At certain intervals after the incubation had been initiated, fractions of the incubation mixture were stopped with 1/20 volume 0.25 M EDTA. A sample of each fraction was run in a 1% agarose gel in TAE buffer as described in (ref. 27), and a fraction containing 4-22 kb fragments was identified. This fraction was further fractionated on a 8 ml sucrose gradient (40-10%) by layering the DNA on top of the gradient prior to ultracentrifugation at 41000 rpm for 7.5 hours. 0.5 ml subfractions were extracted, diluted with 1 volume TE-buffer, ethanol-precipitated and resuspended in TE-buffer. Two of these, containing 9-16 and 15-22 kb fragments respectively, were used in the following cloning steps.

Cloning procedure

9-16 kb and 15-22 kb DNA fragments with 5'GATC overhangs were ligated with Bc1I restricted pUN121 (refs. 27 and 19) by means of T4 DNA ligase. Insertion of DNA into the unique Bc1I site of this vector leads to inactivation of the cI gene, encoding the lambda cI repressor, which subsequently is unable to repress transcription from the plasmid-encoded λ PL promoter into the tetracycline resistance gene. The resulting plasmids were tranformed to competent E. Coli MT 102 cells as described in (ref. 27). Positive selection for clones with plasmid inserts is achieved by adding tetracycline to the medium (10 μg/ml). Using standard transformation techniques (ref. 27), 3332 tetracycline resistant recombinant E. coli clones were obtained, ˜100% of them containing inserts, thus constituting a P. multocida strain 45/78 gene library in E. coil. Colonies of the E. coli clones were grown on LB-plates containing 10 μg/ml of tetracycline. A scrape of these colonies was stored at -80° C. in a 20% glycerol solution.

EXAMPLE 5 Identification of P. multocida toxin producing E. coli clones Screening procedure

The gene library was screened using the colony blot method to transfer colonies to nitrocellulose (ref. 14).

PMT-producing clones were then detected by incubation of the nitrocellulose filters as follows: A) 15 min. in 50 mM Tris, pH 9.6,150 mM NaCl, 0.05% Tween-20 (washing buffer) and 2 μg/ml DNaseI, B) 2×10 min. in washing buffer without DNaseI, C) 30 min. in washing buffer and 3% gelatine and heated, D) 2×10 min. in washing buffer with 1% Triton X-100, E) 60 min. in a 10-fold dilution in washing buffer of a previously described hybridoma supernatant P3F51, F) 3×5 min. in washing buffer, G) 60 min. in washing buffer with horseradish peroxidase linked-anti-mouse Ig whole antibodies from Amersham (NA.931) diluted 1:1000, H) 3×5 min. in washing buffer, I) 1 min. in 10 mM Na₂ HPO₄, 10 mM citric acid, pH 5.0 (C/P buffer), and J) approximately 5 min. in a staining solution mixed immediately prior to use consisting of 80 mg dioctylsodiumsulfosuccinate (DONS), 24 mg 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine. 10 ml ethanol, 30 ml C/P buffer and 20 μl H₂ O₂. The enzyme reaction was terminated by incubation in 100 mg DONS in 12.5 ml ethanol and 37.5 ml H₂₀.

The following clones were found to be positive by this procedure: SPE 301, 308, 311, 312 and 315.

Western blot

The positive clones obtained in the screening procedure were further analyzed using the Western blot technique (ref. 32).

In the Western blot procedure, one ml overnight cultures were pelleted (6000×E for 5 min.) and resuspended in 0.5 M Tris-HCL, pH 6.8 3% SDS, 15% glycerol, 5% mercaptoethanol and bromophenol blue. The samples were boiled for 5 minutes prior to loading on a gel. Proteins were separated by sodium dodecylsulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) (11), the separating gel consisting of 7% (w/v) acrylamide (acrylamide/bisacrylamide ratio of 4.0:1) in 0.4 M Tris, pH 6.8, 0.1% SDS, 0.05% glycerol.

Subsequent transfer to nitrocellulose filters was performed in a semi-dry electroblotter as described by Kyhse-Andersen (25). Further handling of the filters was as described above in the screening procedure.

The results appear from FIG. 3 which shows a Western blot of the 5 positive clones.

The transformant strains SPE 308 (lanes 2 and 3) and SPE 312 (lanes 5 and 6) harbouring the plasmids pSPE 308 and pSPE 312, respectively, were shown to be PMT-producing, whereas SPE 301, SPE 315 and SPE 311 were shown not to be. Purified PMT (lane 8) was used as control. The recombinant toxin produced by SPE 308 and SPE 312 shows the same properties as the native protein with respect to recognition in the competitive ELISA as described in Example 1; the size and the toxic activity in the EBL test (ref. 29) are unchanged.

EXAMPLE 6 Restriction mapping and localization of the PMT gene

The plasmids pSPE 308 and pSPE 312 were analyzed for recognition sequences for restriction enzymes (restriction sites), testing for restriction sites for most of the known enzymes with a 6 base pair (bp) recognition sequence. The results are shown in FIG. 4 (pPSPE 308) and FIG. 5 (pSPE 312). It appears from the figures that the two plasmids carry an approximately 6 kb overlap (from position 11000 to 7000 in pSPE308). The pmt gene is therefore localized within this area.

By constructing end-point deletions in the overlapping areas in pSPE 308 and pSPE 312 a number of plasmids. the pSPE 308 derivatives pSPE 336, pSPE 341, pSPE 344 and pSPE 350 as well as the pSPE 312 derivatives pSPE 338, pSPE 343, pSPE 345, pSPE 347/349 and pSPE 525 were constructed. The extents of the resulting plasmids are shown in FIGS. 6 and 7.

These plasmids were transformed to E. coli strain MT 102 and analyzed for the production of PMT by Western blotting as described above.

In the Western blot, a single protein with an apparent molecular weight of 125000 daltons was found. The blot is shown in FIG. 8. The plasmid pSPE 349 coding for this protein is deleted of a region to the right of the EcoR1 site at position 8200 in pSPE 312 (cf. FIG. 5 and 7). The gene product of plasmid pSPE 349 therefore localizes the position and orientation of the pmt gene (shown as shaded area in FIG. 5). The coding region begins about 3.3 kb upstream of the EcoR1 site at position 8200 in pSPE 312 i.e. around the ClaI site at position 4900. Since the total coding region is estimated to be about 3.9 kb the structural gene ends about position 8800 on the map shown in FIG. 5.

EXAMPLE 7 Sequencing of the pmt gene

The nucleotide sequence carrying the pmt gene as localized in Example 4 was determined using the method described by Sanger et al. (ref. 33). The sequence of 4381 consecutive bp were determined. The DNA sequence of the region is shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) in which the deduced amino acid sequence (SEQ. ID. NO. 1) is indicated above the DNA sequence starting at position 219. The methionine codon of position 219-221 is preferred as a starting codon to the methionine codon of position 213-218 due to its perfect spacing to the putative ribosome binding site at position 201-210. The region containing the pmt gene was subjected to wore detailed restriction mapping by a computer search for all restriction sines for restriction enzymes with 6 bp recognition sequences.

The results are shown in FIG. 9 which shows a high degree of conformity with the previously constructed restriction map.

EXAMPLE 8 Expression of P. multocida toxin in E. coli

The amount of PMT produced in different recombinant E. coli clones was determined by estimating the incorporation of S-35 labelled methionine using the following procedure. Cells were grown in AB minimal medium (ref. 22) supplemented with 0.2% glucose, 1 μg/ml thiamine and 50 μg/ml leucine at 37° C. At an optical density (OD₄₅₀) of 0.6, 1 μl of a 1 mCi/ml S-35 methionine solution (purchased from Amersham, SJ. 1015) was added to a 1 ml sample of the culture at 37° C. 3 minutes later, 50 μl of 10 mg/ml unlabelled methionine was added as a chase and after further 3 minutes, the sample was put on ice. Samples were pelleted (6000×g for 5 minutes) and resuspended in loading buffer (0.5SM Tris-HCl pH 6.8, 3% SDS, 15% glycerol, 5% mercaptoethanol, bromophenol blue). Subsequently, proteins were separated in SDS-PAGE as described in Example 5. Furthermore, the gel was dried and subjected to autoradiography overnight on a KODAK XAR-5 X-ray film. Relative amounts of PMT were estimated by scanning of the X-ray film, using the β and β' subunits of the E. coli RNA-polymerase as a reference.

Recombinant clones tested in this way were MT102 strains harbouring the plasmids pSPE 312, pSPE 525 (shown in FIG. 11) and pSPE 481 (shown in FIG. 12), respectively. Plasmid pSPE 481 consists of the kb PstI fragment of pSPE 525 ligated to a 1.3 kb PstI fragment of plasmid pPL 195, containing part of the ampicillin resistance gene and the lambda PL promoter and operator region. pPL 195 was constructed by inserting a pUC8 EcoRI-HindIII polylinker (ref. 33) into a EcoRI and HindIII restricted PLc28 vector (ref. 36). The resulting pSPE 481 plasmid carries the lambda PL promoter transcribing into pmt gene.

                  TABLE 4                                                          ______________________________________                                         Estimated amount of PMT in the recombinant E. coli clones                                     SPE312   SPE525    SPE481                                       ______________________________________                                         molecules/cell <500     3000-4000 12000-15000                                  Data used in the above calculations                                                           β   β'   PMT                                          ______________________________________                                         Methionine content (%)                                                                        2.76     2.56      2.80                                                        (23)     (24)                                                   Size (kD)      150      155       146.5                                                       (23)     (24)                                                   Molecules/cell 4500     4500                                                   (at 2.5-3 doublings/hour)                                                                     (25)     (25)                                                   ______________________________________                                    

Furthermore, the content of PMT in SPE481 was estimated using the following procedure. A 100 ml culture with an optical density (OD₄₅₀) of 5 was pelleted (6000×g for 5 minutes) and resuspended in 10 ml of 50 mM Tris-HCl pH 7.0. The supernatant, which did not contain any PMT, was discarded and the harvested cells were disrupted by sonication. PMT was then further purified on an anion-exchange column as described in ref. 6. The purified PMT was then subjected to a quantitative ELISA as described in Example 2, obtaining an estimated value of 2-5 μg PMT per ml of culture fluid.

The Escherischia coli K-12 strain MT102 harbouring the pSPE 481 plasmid has been deposited 21 Mar., 1988 according to the Budapest Treaty in Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH under the strain designation Escherichia coli K-12 SPE 481. The accession number is DSM 4488.

EXAMPLE 9 Production and characterization of toxin derivatives

The following derivatives of toxin-encoding plasmids were constructed with the purpose of producing truncated, i.e. detoxified, toxins which are potentially useful for immunogenic purposes. The constructions were prepared on the basis of the restriction mappings disclosed in Examples 6 and 7. The hypothetical toxin-derived proteins produced from plasmids pSPE A through pSPE Q, proteins A through R, are shown in FIG. 13. All derivatives were optimally expressed from the respective plasmids in strain SG 21059 kindly provided by Susan Gottesmann. The known genotype of this strain is Δgal 1on146:: ΔTn10 Δ1ac.

1) pSPE A. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme StuI prior to ligation. This deletion causes a change of reading frame. However, as described below, a PMT derivative could be detected in Western blotting as well as in the EBL toxicity test. This could be due to a small amount of erroneous frame--shifting in the translation procedure. See FIG. 13.

2) pSPE B. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme XbaI prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 108 kD, lacking amino acids 169 through 468 of PMT. See FIG. 13.

3) pSPE C. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme NdeI prior to ligation. This deletion causes a change of reading frame. However, as described below, a PMT derivative could be detected in small amounts. This could be due to erroneous frame-shifting in the translation procedure. See FIG. 13.

4) pSPE D. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzymes NdeI and SnaBI and subsequently blunt-ending the resulting ends, using T4 polymerase (purchased from New England Biolabs) as described by the manufacturer, prior to ligation. This deletion causes a change of reading frame. However, as described below, a PMT derivative could be detected in small amounts. This could be due to erroneous frame-shirring in the translation procedure. See FIG. 13.

5) pSPE E. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme HindIll prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 53 kD, since this deletion causes a change of reading frame. See FIG. 13.

6) pSPE F. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 312 with the restriction enzyme HindIII prior to ligation. Like pSPE E, this plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 53 kD. See FIG. 13.

7) pSPE G. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzymes SnaBI and XhoI and subsequently blunt-ending the resulting ends as above, prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 135 kD, lacking amino acids 507 through 568 of PMT. See FIG. 13.

8) pSPE H. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzymes SnaBI and SpeI and subsequently blunt-ending the resulting ends as above, prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 88 kD, lacking amino acids 569 through 1058 of PMT. See FIG. 13.

9) pSPE I. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme NsiI prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 79 kD, lacking amino acids 634 through 1204 of PMT. See FIG. 13.

10) pSPE J. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 312 with the restriction enzyme NsiI prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 70 kD. See FIG. 13.

11) pSPE K. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme SpeI and blunt-ending the resulting ends as above prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 117 kD. See FIG. 13.

12) pSPE L. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 312 with the restriction enzyme EcoRI prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 124 kD. See FIG. 13.

13) pSPE O. The plasmid was constructed by partially restricting non-methylated pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme BclI prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of 133 kD, lacking amino acids 30 through 150 of PMT. See FIG. 13.

14) pSPE P. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzyme SpeI, subsequent treatment with the exonuclease Bal31, restriction with EcoRI and finally treatment with Klenow fragment of DNA polymerase I in the presence of all four deoxyribonucleotides prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 136 kD, lacking amino acids 1043 through 1130 of PMT. See FIG. 13.

15) pSPE Q. The plasmid was constructed from a derivative of pSPE 481, pSPE 680. pSPE 680 was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzymes BamHI and ClaI, and treatment with Klenow fragment of DNA polymerase I in the presence of all four deoxynucleotides prior to ligation. Subsequently, pSPE Q was constructed by restricting pSPE 680 with EcoRV prior to ligation. The plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of 127 kD, lacking amino acids 175 through 246 of PMT.

16) pSPE R. The plasmid was constructed by restricting pSPE 481 with the restriction enzymes SpeI and EcoRI and blunt-ending the resulting ends, as described above, prior to ligation. The resulting plasmid codes for a hypothetical PMT derivative of about 117 kD, See FIG. 13.

The reactivity of selected derivatives with a panel of anti-PMT MAbs has been studied by sandwich ELISA's based on detection with non--competitive combination pairs of MAbs. By this method an antigen-code (Ag-code), i.e. a term indicating the epitope-difference of the derivative compared to PMT, was determined for each derivative.

The minimal cytopathic dose (MCD) on 120 μl of 1.5×10⁵ embryonic bovine lung cells has been estimated for some affinity-purified PMT derivatives.

The results of the two studies are indicated in the following table (Table 5):

                  TABLE 5                                                          ______________________________________                                         Derivative                                                                     L            O       P       B*    C*     G*                                   ______________________________________                                         Ag-code PMT-α                                                                             PMT-β                                                                             PMT-β                                                                           PMT-γ                                                                          PMT-γ                                                                           PMT                                MCD (ng)                                                                               250      30000   5     n.d.  n.d.   n.d.                               ______________________________________                                          *not affinitypurified (sonicates)                                              n.d.: not done                                                           

The antigen-code "PMT" indicates that the derivative reacts indifferently compared to PMT by the sandwich-ELISA, i.e. all epitopes characterized by the panel of MAbs, which are present on PMT can be detected on the derivative The Ag-code "PMT-x", where x is α, β or γ indicates that the MAb(s) reacting with epitope x on PMT are not reacting with the derivative. The results of these tests shows that epitope α is missing on derivative L, β is missing on O and P and γ is missing on B and C.

The MCD of PMT is approx. 0.01-0.03 ng and it is therefore obvious that the abovementioned derivatives L and O are practically non-cytopathic compared to PMT, whereas P shows slightly remaining cytopathic activity.

A Western blot was made using a mouse anti-PMT antiserum produced described in Example 1, and using horseradish perioxidase rabbit anti-mouse Ig whole antibody (purchased from Amersham) as the secondary antibody. Strains harbouring the plasmids pSPE A, B, C, D, E, G, H, I and L were shown to react with the anti-PMT antiserum (cf. FIG. 14).

Trials carried our on mice for elucidation of the immunogenic effect of the O-derivative

Purpose

To study the immunogenic effect of PMT after deletion in the N-terminal end (O-derivative).

Method

For the trials, BALB/c mice were used. Sexually mature female mice were immunized subcutaneously 2 times at 14 days interval with 0.3 m O-derivative (2.5-5 μg/ml) in 20% _(A) lhydrogel (cf. Example 12) in PBS+0.1% zero-mouse-serum.

Simultaneously with the let vaccination the female mice were mated. Thus, the 2nd vaccination took place about I week before expected birth.

1) About 10 days old the baby mice were divided into 2 groups. Half of them were dripped intranasally with PMT (totally 60 ng PMT), the other half was injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with PMT in different concentrations. The number of dead animals was recorded.

2) All the adult female mice were bled after killing of the surviving baby mice. The blood samples were analysed by ELISA as described in Example 13 for the presence of antibodies against PMT. Immediately after blood sampling the mice were injected i.p. with different concentrations of PMT. The number of dead animals was recorded.

    ______________________________________                                         Schematic trial plan                                                           Trial                                                                          week                                                                           No.                                                                            ______________________________________                                         3    31 female BALB/c mice were mated and subsequently                              immunized with O-derivative                                               1    31 female BALB/c mice were immunized for the second                            time with O-derivative                                                    0    31 female mice delivered 122 baby mice                                    1    the baby mice were divided into group I (61) which was                         treated intranasally with PMT. Group II (61) which was                         treated i.p. with PMT                                                     2    surviving baby mice were killed                                                female BALB/c mice were bled                                                   female BALB/c mice were injected i.p. with PMT                            3    the number of surviving female BALB/c mice was                                 recorded and the animals killed                                                Trial finished                                                            ______________________________________                                    

Results are shogun in tables 6 and 7.

LD₇₅ in non-protected baby mice was about 20 ng PMT injected i.p. LD₅₀ in non-protected adult mice was about 70 ng PMT injected i.p.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that mice born from mothers vaccinated with O-derivative vaccine in the doses described can survive i.p. injection of min. 25×LD₅₀ of PMT. The protection is obtained via antibodies transferred via colostrum from mother to offspring.

Furthermore it can be concluded that O-derivative vaccinated animals develop antibodies against PMT, even if some variation is seen. The mice can survive i.p. injection of min. 50×LD₅₀ of PMT.

Thus, mice vaccinated with O-derivative can transfer a considerable protection against PMT to the offspring via colostrum. The mice themselves develop antibodies against PMT and are protected against even high concentrations of PMT.

                                      TABLE 6                                      __________________________________________________________________________     SCHEME OF VACCINATION TRIALS WITH O-FRAGMENT IN MICE (ADULT)                   - x, (s)                                                                               CONC. Amount of PMT (challenge)                                        Trial                                                                             (in titer)                                                                          (vaccine)                                                                            200 ng                                                                             250 ng                                                                             800 ng                                                                             3200 ng                                                                             4000 ng                                                                             8000 ng                                                                             16000 ng                              __________________________________________________________________________     1  6.49 5 μg/ml                                                                           0/2*    0/4 0/4                                                     (0.60)                                                                      2  1.27 5 μg/ml             1/3  3/4  4/4                                      (1.06)                                                                      3  1.06 2.5 μg/ml                                                                             1/2          2/4       3/4                                      (1.10)                                                                      __________________________________________________________________________      *Number of dead mice/number of i.p. injected mice                        

                  TABLE 7                                                          ______________________________________                                         SCHEME OF TRIAL WITH                                                           O-FRAGMENT IN MICE (OFFSPRING)                                                 Amount of PMT (challenge)                                                      Trial 20 ng   30 ng    100 ng                                                                               150 ng 500 ng                                                                               750 ng                               ______________________________________                                         1     0/4*             0/7          0/7                                        2             0/9            0/10         8/8                                  3             0/1            0/10         4/5                                  ______________________________________                                          *Number of dead mice/number of i.p. injected mice                        

EXAMPLE 10 Differentiation of PMT⁺ and PMT⁻ strains by PMT-ELISA

615 field isolates and 7 reference strains of P. multocida were examined. The field isolates were obtained from nasal swabs (603 isolates) and lungs (12 isolates) of pigs from 156 Danish herds and were identified by the following criteria: acid produced from glucose. saccharose, mannitol, sorbitol and not from maltose, arabinose, dulcitol and inositol; and production of indole, ornithine decarboxylase, catalase, oxidase and not of urease.

Extracts for toxin analyses were prepared by harvesting blood agar (9 cm Petri dish) overnight (37° C.) cultures into 2 ml of sterile water by means of a spatula. The suspensions were left for extraction at 37° C. for approximately 18 hours. One part of the extract was examined directly by PMT-ELISA as described in Example 2. All absorbances (A) were expressed as percentages of the absorbance obtained by a positive control (A_(O)). This control was a 1:1 dilution of an extract, freshly prepared for each test of the toxigenic type D reference strain P. multocida ssp. multocida 45/78.

Another part was-centrifuged (30 min. at 1500×g), the supernatant sterile filtered and subsequently examined in the EEL-cell test as described earlier refs. 22 and 29).

The 615 field isolates were characterized as toxigenic (250) or non-toxigenic (365) by the F, EBL-cell test and were of capsular type A (119 toxigenic and 92 non-toxigenic isolates) or D (131 toxigenic and 273 non-toxigenic isolates).

Full agreement between the EEL-cell test and the PMT-ELISA was obtained for the 615 field isolates and the 7 reference strains (Table 8).

                  TABLE 8                                                          ______________________________________                                                          EBL-cell-test                                                                           PMT-ELISA                                                             a)       b)                                                   ______________________________________                                         250 field isolates of                                                                             +          +                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida                                                    365 field isolates of                                                                             -          -                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida                                                    Type strain (CCUG 17977)                                                                          -          -                                                P. multocida ssp. septica                                                      Type strain (NCTC. 10204)                                                                         -          -                                                P. multocida ssp. galicida                                                     Type strain (NCTC 10322)                                                                          -          -                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida, type A                                            Reference strain (ATCC 12945)                                                                     -          -                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida, type A                                            Reference strain (NCTC 12177)                                                                     +          +                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida, type A                                            Reference strain (ATCC 7707)                                                                      -          -                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida, type D                                            Reference strain (NCTC 12178)                                                                     +          +                                                P. multocida ssp. multocida, type D                                            ______________________________________                                          a) All EBLpositive (+) bacterial extracts had EBLtitres above 10.sup.3         (median 10.sup.4, range 10.sup.3 -10.sup.6), in the EBLcell test,              EBLnegative (-) extracts were noncytopathic.                                   b) All 1:1 diluted ELISApositive (+) bacterial extracts had relative           absorbances above 39% (mean ± SD: 94% ± 13%) in the PMTELISA,            whereas all ELISAnegative (-) extracts had relative absorbances below 9%       (2.1% ± 1.9%).                                                        

The cytopathic and non-cytopathic extracts of the 615 field isolates were separated in two clearly distinguishable groups by the PMT-ELISA (FIG. 15). Since the means ± SD of the absorbances (A) obtained from the 1:1 diluted extracts of the 250 toxigenic isolates was 172±0.48, visual readings instead of photometric measurements of the ELI-SA-results would be satisfactory for the differentiation of extracts of P. multocida. The mean ± SD of the PMT-concentration in the extracts of the toxigenic isolates of P. multocida was estimated being 2.8±1.9 μg/ml, and since the detection limit of the PMT-ELISA is approx. 50 pg (1 ng/ml) PMT (cf. Example 2), dilutions of the extracts (FIG. 16) and extracts with low PMT-concentrations may appropriately be tested by PMT-ELISA. The main advantages of the PMT-ELISA compared to existing tests are the independence of cell culture or laboratory animal facilities, the ability of a single laboratory worker to handle several hundreds of samples per day and the possibility of obtaining quantitative objective results from bacterial extracts in 4 hours.

EXAMPLE 11 Neutralization of PMT which monoclonal anti-PMT-antibodies

Samples (30 μl) of either PMT in PBS or PMT in a crude cell-free extract of P. multocida 45/78 (ref. 6) containing PMT in amounts up 12 ng and 1 μg of purified MAb (P3F51) were incubated for 15 min. at 20° C. before application to embryonic bovine lung (EBL) cells (120 μl 1.5×10⁵ cells/ml) as described for the original EBL-cell test (ref. 29). The minimal cytopathic dose (MCD) of PMT was estimated when no MAb was present in the sample. The neutralization titer was recorded as the number of MCD which could be neutralized by 1 μg of MAb.

The results appear from Table 9 below.

                  TABLE 9                                                          ______________________________________                                         Hybridoma                                                                               Representative                                                                              Neutralization in                                        group No.                                                                               MAb          EBL-cell test (× MCD).sup.a                        ______________________________________                                         1        P3F51        130                                                      2        P3F64        70                                                       3        P3F37        <2                                                       4        P4F58        30                                                       5        P3F22        40                                                       6        P4F46        100                                                      7        P4F38        35                                                       8        P4F55        40                                                       9        P3F50        400                                                      10       P3F53        55                                                       ______________________________________                                          .sup.a) Neutralization of the cytopathic effect on PMT was estimated as        the number of minimal cytopathic doses (MCD) neutralized by 1 μg of         MAb. The MCD of PMT is about 30 pg.                                      

As indicated in Table 9, addition of 1 μg of Mab to PMT 15 min. before addition to the EBL-cells resulted in a 30 to 400 times increase of the MCD for 9 out of the 10 representative Mabs, whereas Mab P3F37 had a very low neutralizing effect on PMT. The neutralization of the cytopathic effect of PMT was also achieved when a crude cell-free extract of P. multocida 45/78 was used instead of pure PMT.

Samples (200 μl) containing PMT in variable amounts up to 2.56 μg and purified Mab (P3F51) in amounts between 0.15 and 15 μg were incubated for 15 min. at 20° C. and injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) in female BALB/c mice (6 weeks old, 15 to 20 g). Mice dying within a week from the time of PMT injection were recorded and the lethal dose of PMT and the neutralizing effect of the MAb was estimated. When 1.5 or 15 μg of P3F51 were added the lethal dose of PMT increased about 4 and 32 times, respectively, whereas 0.15 μg of the MAb had no neutralizing effect.

To study the in vivo neutralization ability of anti-PMT monoclonal antibodies a 200 μl solution containing 15 μg of purified monoclonal antibody (P3F51) was injected (i.p.) in female BALB/c mice (6 weeks old, 15-20 g) 2 days before i.p. administration of a 200 μl solution containing PMT in varying amounts up to 2.56 μg either in a pure form or as a crude cell-free extract of P. multocida 45/78 (ref. 6). The neutralizing effect was estimated as described above.

The lethal dose of PMT increased about 32 times when mice were passively immunized with 15 μg of P3F51 2 days before challenge with PMT or a crude cell-free extract of P. multocida 45/78.

EXAMPLE 12 Vaccination with purified PMT or derivative O

15 mg of PMT purified as described in Example 3 in 45 ml of PBS was dialyzed against 0.35% formaldehyde in PBS, pH 7.3-7.9, for 36 hours at 4° C. after which 1 g/l lysine-HCl was added to the dialysis liquid, and after 18 hours the dialysis was continued with repeated changes of PBS. The thus produced detoxified PMT was analyzed for lack of (or sufficiently reduced) toxic activity in the mouse lethality test and the cytopathic test on EBL-cells described above as well as a dermonecrotic test in guinea pigs as described by Foged et al. (1).

10 mg of biologically inactive (detoxified) PMT in 40 ml PBS was then coupled to 10 ml aluminium hydroxide gel purchased from Superfos. Denmark, under the trade name Alhydrogel as recommended by the manufacturer and diluted in 20% aluminium hydroxide in PBS to a final concentration of about 5 μg/ml or 125 μg/ml detoxified PMT.

Gestating gilts were immunized subcutaneously 4-6 weeks and 2-3 weeks before farrowing with a dosis of 3 ml of the detoxified PMT vaccine composition prepared above, After farrowing piglets were inoculated intranasally with Bordetella bronchiseptica and P. multocida as described in ref. 1 and the protective effect of the immunization of the sows was estimated by measuring the average daily weight gain before slaughtering of the pigs (at about 90 kg live weight) and determination of osteopathological conditions in the snout of the pigs at slaughtering. Pigs from immunized sows were compared to pigs from non-immunized sows and the protective effect of the immunization is shown in Table 10.

                  TABLE 10                                                         ______________________________________                                                                      No. of animals                                                      Mean daily with severe                                               No. of animals                                                                           weight gain                                                                               turbinate                                                 (litters) after weaning                                                                             atrophy (%)                                       ______________________________________                                         Pigs from 61 (8)      781 g      49 (80.3%)                                    non-immunized                                                                  sows                                                                           Pigs from 174 (20)    848 g      20 (11.5%)                                    immunized                                                                      sows                                                                           ______________________________________                                    

In a study still in progress gilts were immunized with 50 μg/dose of affinity-purified derivative O from sonicates of an E.coli clone containing pSPE O as described in Example 9. No modifications of O were performed except for coupling to Alhydrogel. Preliminary results of the vaccination study indicates that:

a) the serum- and colostrum titres against native PMT are similar for gilts vaccinated with derivate O and formaldehyde treated PMT,

b) the specific antibodies are transferred to piglets through colostrum equally well in both vaccine groups.

c) the clinical symptoms of atrophic rhinitis are prevented equally well in the progeny from gilts vaccinated with O (O-piglets) and formaldehyde treated PMT (P-piglets), and that this prevention seems to be close to 100%, when compared to piglets born by unvaccinated gilts (control piglets).

d) the toxigenic P. multocida used for the experimental infection can be reisolated in significantly higher rates from control piglets than from O- or P-piglets at 5 weeks of age.

EXAMPLE 13 Detection of anri-PMT-antibodies

By proceeding substantially as described in Example 2, but by incubating the coating monoclonal anti-PMT-antibody with a premixed preparation of serum and a constant amount of PMT, it is possible to detect anti-PMT-antibodies in serum of for instance pigs infected with P. multocida or of animals vaccinated with a vaccine of the invention. The mixture which was prepared for concentrated or diluted serum samples was incubated for 30 min. at 37° C. before incubation for 15 min. in the microtiter plate. The presence of anti-PMT-antibodies in the serum sample was detected by a decrease in absorbance measured substantially as described in Example 1 (the section entitled "ELISA for estimating epitope specificity"). The results are shown in FIG. 17 which shows the 50% blocking titers of serum from an anti-PMT-antibody negative pig (<2), a pig infected with a toxin-producing P. multocida strain (about 14) and a gilt vaccinated with the vaccine described in Example 12 (about 250).

EXAMPLE 14 Detection of PMT by colony blot and immunoblotting

The presence of PMT in samples may be detected by a colony blot method (ref. 14) as described in Example 5 (the section entitled "Screening procedure").

Similarly, the presence of PMT in samples may be detected by separating proteins in the samples electrophoretically by SDS-PAGE (as described in Example 1) and transferring them electrophoretically to a nitrocellulose membrane where PMT, if present, can be visualized by immunoblotting as described in Example 1 (in the section entitled "Immunoblotting"). The electrophoretic location of the stained protein band also gives the apparent molecular weights of PMT (approximately 143 kd).

EXAMPLE 15 Generic distinction between PMT+ and PMT- isolates of P. multocida as determined by colony hybridization

P. multocida isolates (17 toxin-positive and 18 toxin-negative strains as determined by ELISA and EBL tests as described above) were inoculated on Tryptic Soy Broth Agar plates (purchased from DIFCO). After incubation overnight at 37° C., a replica was made on a nitrocellulose membrane filter (Schleicher & Schull BA 85). This replica was placed (face up) on top of 4 consecutive Whatman 3MM filters which were soaked in 10% SDS, denaturation buffer (0.SM NaOH, 1.5 NaCl), neutralization buffer (0.5M Tris-MC1 pH 8.0, 1.5M NaCl) and 2×SSPE (360 mM NaCl, 20 mM NaH₂ PO₄, 2 mM EDTA pH 7.4), respectively. Incubation was carried out for 5 minutes on each filter at room temperature. Subsequently, the nitrocellulose filter was dried and DNA was fixed to the filter by baking at 80° C. for 2 hours. Prehybridization and hybridizations were done in 6×SSC (0.15M NatCl, 0.015M sodium titrate, pH 7), 0.5% SDS and 5×Denhardt solution for 2 hours and overnight, respectively, at 65° C. The probe was a radioactively labelled XbaI fragment from position 1623 to 4376 in the sequence shown in FIG. 10 (a)-(j) prepared by the nick translation method (ref. 22). After hybridization the filter was washed at 25° C. in 2×SSC, 0.5% SDS for 2×15 min. and in 0.2×SSC, 0.5% SDS for 2×1 hour at 65° C. and left for autoradiography overnight.

The results appear from FIG. 18 which shows chat colonies at positions 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 34, 36, 37, 39, 45 and 50 were PMT⁺ and colonies at positions 7, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 42, 44, 47, 48, 53, 56, 58, 63, 66, 73 and 75 were PMT⁻. These results are in accordance with the ELISA and EBL determinations. Hence, non-toxigenic strains of P. multocida owe their lack of toxin production to a lack of the PMT encoding pmt gene.

EXAMPLE 16 Purification of rPMT and comparison of rPMT with PMT

In the toxin purification procedure, cells harvested from a 1 l overnight stationary culture of SPE312 were resuspended in 10 ml of H₂ O and sonicated several times for 0.5 min. at 0° C. using a Branson sonifier 250 (Branson, Conn., U.S.A.). The sonicate was diluted to 50 ml in 0.1M Tris-HCl, pH 7.8 containing 0.5 M NaCl before appliation to the affinity column which was prepared by immobilizing the anti-PMT Mab P3F5F51 as described in Example 3. After repeated washings of the affinity column, rPMT was eluted with 0.1M glycin-HCl, pH 2.8 as earlier described for the affinity purification of PMT from extracts of toxigenic P. multocida. All fractions were immediately neutralized with 1 M K₂ HPO₄.

A diluted bacterial sonicate of SPE312 containing approximately 82 μg of rPMT as determined by the quantitative ELISA described in Example 2 was applied to a 1-ml affinity column to which was coupled approximately 5 mg of anti-PMT MAb P3F51. No rPMT could be detected in the effluent from the column. Upon elution approximately 75 μg of rPMT was obtained in the two main fractions of 1.4 ml each. This corresponds to a recovery of 91% of the applied rPMT.

PMT assays

Quantification of rPMT was done as described for PMT (Example 2) using the capture anti-PMT MAb P3F51 and the biotinylated detector MAb P3F37 in the PMT-ELISA, a sandwich ELISA based on the same technique as explained below for the study of epitopes on rPMT and PMT. Quantification by the PMT-ELISA was compared to results obtained in a modified Coomassie brilliant blue dye-binding microassay previously used for the determinations of protein concentrations and dye-binding ability of PMT compared to bovine serum albumine (BSA).

Comparison of epitopes on rPMT and PMT was done by sandwich ELISA's based on 10 anti-PMT MAbs (Example 1) purified from hybridoma supernatants on protein A-agarose columns. These MAbs have been shown to react with different epitopes on PMT. The sandwich-ELISA's were done as described in Example 2. Dual determinations were performed for both antigens in all 100 combinations of the 10 catching MAbs and the same biotinylated detecting MAbs. Combination pairs of MAbs resulting in absorbances below 0.3 were considered competitive. For the non-competitive combination pairs, the results were described as the mean of dual determinations of absorbance obtained for rPMT relative to the mean of dual determinations of absorbance for PMT.

The dermonecrotic and lethal effects of rPMT and PMT were determined by injecting 200 μl of dilutions of the previously ELISA-quantified samples intradermally into guinea pigs or intraperitoneally into BALB/c mice, respectively. Samples resulting in a dermal lesion of 10 mm or more at 48 h after intradermal injection were scored as dermonecrotic and samples resulting in death in less than 5 days after intraperitoneal injection were scored as lethal. All results were based on at least duplicate determinations.

Affinity-purified rPMT and PMT had very similar patterns of reactions in the structural ELISA test based on 100 combination pairs of 10 different anti-PMT MAbs and 100 ng/ml of affinity purified antigen. For PMT 25 pairs resulted in an absorbance value (A₄₉₂) below 0.3 which was considered to indicate competitiveness. The same 25 pairs showed competitive reactions when the antigen was 100 ng/ml rPMT. The remaining 75 non-competitive combination pairs resulted in A₄₉₂ values above 0.3 both when PMT and rPMT was used. The overall mean ± SD for the 75 calculated values of the relative absorbances of rPMT compared to PMT was 112%±8%. Only minor differences from the overall mean were observed for the mean values for the 10 catching MAbs and the 10 biotinylated detector MAbs.

PMT and rPMT reacted very similarly when tested for cytopathic effect on EBL-cells, for dermonecrotic activity in guinea pigs, and for lethality in mice, and their ability to bind Coomassie brilliant blue were equal and approximately 2.5 times weaker than the dye-binding ability of BSA (Table 11).

                  TABLE 11                                                         ______________________________________                                         Cytopathic, dermonecrotic, lethal and                                          dye-binding effects of PMT and rPMT                                                  minimal    minimal     minimal                                                 cytopathic dermonecrotic                                                                              lethal  dye-binding                               Sample                                                                               dose (pg)  dose (ng)   dose (ng)                                                                              (%).sup.a                                 ______________________________________                                         PMT   20-40      15-45       25-50   40-45                                     rPMT  20-40      35          30      35-45                                     ______________________________________                                          .sup.a The concentration of BSA relative to the concentration of sample        resulting in equal colour formation in the Coomassie brilliant blue            dyebinding microassay.                                                   

EXAMPLE 17 Examination of E.coli and P. multocida sonicates for cytopathic activity.

Sonicates of E.coli SPE312 and P. multocida 45/78, prepared as described in Example 16 were tested for cytopathic effect in the embryonic bovine lung (EBL) cell test (ref. 29). A row of 5-fold dilutions was prepared for each sonicate and 30 μl of each sample was applied to 1.8×10⁴ EBL-cells in 120 μl of culture medium and the mixture incubated for 3 days at 37° C. before fixation and staining. Samples which resulted in monolayers of EEL-cells morphologically discernible from the epithelial-like swirling patterns of negative control culture, were scored as cytopathic. The cytopathic effects for affinity purified rPMT and PMT in the EBL-cell test were determined in the same way. The minimal cytopathic dose (MCD) for the samples was calculated as minimal amount of rPMT or PMT, determined by the quantitative PMT-ELISA causing a cytopathic effect.

Neutralization of the cytopathic effect of E.coli SPE 313 sonicate by anti-PMT MAbs was compared to neutralization of pure PMT: Samples (30 μl) containing approximately 1 μg of MAb and varying amounts of sonicate or PMT were incubated for 15 min. at 20° C. before application to EBL-cells. The results were recorded as the number of MCDs neutralized by each MAb, and as the ratio bet-ween the number of neutralized MCDs of the sonicate and pure PMT for each MAb.

Sonicates of SPE308 and SPE312 were shown to cause morphological changes of embryonic bovine lung (EBL) cells, identical to those caused by toxigentc strains of P. multocida (FIG. 19 (data for SPE308 not shown)). As observed for pure PMT, the cytopathic effect of the sonicate of E.coli SPE312 could be neutralized by incubation with anti-PMT MAbs. Between 5 and 125 times MCD of the sonicate could be neutralized by various anti-PMT MAbs, whereas between 3 and 125 times MCD of the pure PMT were neutralized. The overall mean ± SD for the 10 calculated values of the relative number of neutralized MCDs of E.coli SPE312 sonicate compared to PMT was 95%±32%. A PMT-unrelated MAb used as a control did not neutralize the effects of the two cytopathic preparations.

EXAMPLE 18 Analysis of the nature of the DNA flanking the pmt gene

In an attempt to investigate the nature of the DNA flanking the pmt gene in P. multocida 45/78, chromosome walking was performed as described in ref. 37. By using a colony hybridization procedure plasmids carrying P. multocida DNA were isolated from the P. multocida gene library described in Example 4.

Probes

The plasmid pLOL03 was constructed by subcloning a 0.8 kb AccI-HindIII DNA fragment of pSPE344 (FIG. 20) in the vector pGEM-blue (Promega, Wis., USA). The plasmid pLOR02 was likewise constructed by subcloning the 2.4 kb EcoRI-Bg1III fragment of pSPE312 (FIG. 20) in the vector pGEM-blue. The E.coli K12 strain DHSalpha (BRL, Md. USA) was used as host strain for pLOL03 and pLOR02. pLOL03 and pLOR02 in linearized forms were used for generating RNA probes of the P. multocida DNA carried by these plasmids. The RNA probes were radioactively labelled using the Riboprobe System II procedure (Promega, Wis., USA), and used in the colony hybridizations and Southern blots described below.

Colony hybridization

The P. muitocida gone library was spread in appropriate dilution on several lB-plates containing 10 μg/ml tetracycline, and incubated overnight at 37° C. Replicas of the plates were made on nitrocellulose membrane filters, and the cells were lysed and the DNA fixed to the filters as described in example 15.

Prehybridization and hybridization was performed at 65° C. in 50% formamide, 6×SSC (0.15 NaCl, 0.015 M tri-sodium citrate, pH 7.0), 0.1% SDS, 5×Denhardt's solution and 200 μg/ml denatured Salmon sperm DNA for at least 2 hours and overnight, respectively. After hybridization, the filters were washed twice at room-temperature in 1×SSC, 0.1% SDS, and twice at 65° C. in 0.1×SSC, 0.1% SDS. After washing, the filters were left overnight for autoradiography.

This procedure resulted in the isolation of a number of clones carrying P. multocida DNA flanking the inserts in pSPE308 or pSPE312. These clones were further analyzed using the Southern blot technique (ref. 17). The Southern blots showed that the following plasmids were recognized by the RNA probe coded for by pLOL03: pLOA01, pLOA02 and pLOA03. Similarly the plasmids pLOB01, pLOB02 and pLOB03 were recognized by the RNA probe coded for by pLOR02.

pLOA03 (approx. 14.2 kb) and pLOB03 (approx. 12.7 kb) carried the largest inserts. Their restriction maps and a Southern blot analysis show that pLOA03 and pSPE308 contain overlapping DNA of approximately 4.0 kb and that pLOB03 and pSPE312 contain overlapping DNA of approximately 1.7 kb as shown in FIG. 20.

A Southern blot was made using DNA extracted as described in Examples 4 (a KI gradient (0.875 g/ml) was used instead of the CsCl₂ gradient) from the toxigenic P. multocida 45/78 and from a non-toxigenic P. multocida strain MH81P8, type D (ref. 36) and the plasmids pLOA03, pLOA02, pSPE308, pSPE312 and pLOB03 digested by restriction enzymes as indicated in FIG. 2. The probe was the 2.4 kb Bg1II-EcoRI fragment of pLOB03 radioactively labelled by nicktranslation (Rigby et al., 1977, (ref. 19)). The result shows that:

1) The probe recognizes a DNA sequence on each of the plasmids pLOA03 and pLOB03. Thus, there is a homologous sequence on each side of the pmt gene. The distance between these homologous sequences is approximately 25 kb.

2) The probe recognizes distinct fragments of the chromosomal DNA of both P. multocida strains used in this Southern blot.

The above findings could indicate that the DNA flanking the pmt gene and thus the pmt gene itself has originally been carried by a bacteriophage, a transposon, a plasmid or another genetic element which is integrated into the bacterial chromosome.

Dot blot

DNA from 24 bacteriophages isolated from P. multocida strains and all shown to be different in their lysis patterns towards a range of P. multocida strains were bound to a nylon filter by dot blotting. The plasmid pLOA03 was radioactively labelled by nicktranslation, and used as a probe against the filter. Hybridization and washing conditions were as described above. The results are shown in FIG. 22. The probe hybridized to 22 out of 24 bacteriophages and, as expected, to the four positive controls. By using pSPE308 and pLOB03 as probes, similar results were obtained. pSPE312 gave only a slight hybridzation to some of the bacteriophage genomes. The 4.5 kb pmt gene containing ClaI-PvuII fragment of pSPE312 (FIG. 5) did not show any homology to any of the bacteriophage genomes (autoradiographs are not shown).

These results show that there are sequences homologous to P. multocida bacteriophage DNA on both sides of the pmt gene. This further substantiates the notion that the pmt gene is carried by a prophage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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    __________________________________________________________________________     SEQUENCE LISTING                                                               (1) GENERAL INFORMATION:                                                       (iii) NUMBER OF SEQUENCES: 2                                                   (2) INFORMATION FOR SEQ ID NO:1:                                               (i) SEQUENCE CHARACTERISTICS:                                                  (A) LENGTH: 4380 base pairs                                                    (B) TYPE: nucleic acid                                                         (C) STRANDEDNESS: single                                                       (D) TOPOLOGY: linear                                                           (ii) MOLECULE TYPE: DNA (genomic)                                              (vi) ORIGINAL SOURCE:                                                          ( A) ORGANISM: Pasteurella multocida                                           (ix) FEATURE:                                                                  (A) NAME/KEY: CDS                                                              (B) LOCATION: 219..4073                                                        (xi) SEQUENCE DESCRIPTION: SEQ ID NO:1:                                        AACAAGGGAAAATAGCTAGATTAGACGATATCGATAATATCATAAATAATATTTAAAAAT60                 TACGCCCCTTGACCTAGAGGGGCTTTTTTATTACATCAAAAAAATAAACC CAAACACTGC120               GAATGTTTGGGGTTTTATTTATAACCAAAATACATTAATATGTTTATTAAGTAAGCATTA180                TCTTACTTTAGGAATAAACTAACATAGAGGTTATGGATATGAAAACAAAACAT233                        MetLysThrLysHis                                                               15                                                                             TTTTTTAACTCAGATTTTACTGTAAAAGGAAAAAGTGCCGATGAAATT281                            PhePheAsnSerAspPheThrV alLysGlyLysSerAlaAspGluIle                              101520                                                                         TTTAGAAGATTGTGTACTGATCATCCTGACAAGCAATTAAACAATGTA329                            PheArgArgLeuCysThrAsp HisProAspLysGlnLeuAsnAsnVal                              253035                                                                         AAATGGAAAGAAGTTTTTATTAATCGTTTTGGTCAGATGATGCTAGAT377                            LysTrpLysGluValPheIleAsn ArgPheGlyGlnMetMetLeuAsp                              404550                                                                         ACTCCTAATCCGAGAAAGATTGTAGAAAAAATTATTAATGAAGGGCTT425                            ThrProAsnProArgLysIleValGluLy sIleIleAsnGluGlyLeu                              556065                                                                         GAAAAACAAGGCCTGAAAAATATAGATCCTGAAAACACATATTTCAAC473                            GluLysGlnGlyLeuLysAsnIleAspProGluAsnT hrTyrPheAsn                              70758085                                                                       ATTTTTTCATCTTCTGACAGCTCCGATGGGAACGTTTTTCATTATAAC521                            IlePheSerSerSerAspSerSerAspGlyAsn ValPheHisTyrAsn                              9095100                                                                        TCTTTATCAGAATCCTATCGAGTTACTGATGCCTGCCTAATGAATATT569                            SerLeuSerGluSerTyrArgValThrAspAla CysLeuMetAsnIle                              105110115                                                                      TTTGTGGAGCGTTATTTTGATGATTGGGACTTGCTAAATAGCTTAGCC617                            PheValGluArgTyrPheAspAspTrpAspLeuLe uAsnSerLeuAla                              120125130                                                                      AGTAATGGAATATATTCAGTAGGAAAAGAAGGAGCTTATTATCCTGAT665                            SerAsnGlyIleTyrSerValGlyLysGluGlyAlaTyrT yrProAsp                              135140145                                                                      CATGATTATGGTCCAGAATATAACCCTGTTTGGGGACCAAACGAACAA713                            HisAspTyrGlyProGluTyrAsnProValTrpGlyProAsnGluGln                                150155160165                                                                  ATTTACCATTCTAGAGTGATTGCAGATATCCTTTATGCTCGCTCCGTA761                            IleTyrHisSerArgValIleAlaAspIleLeuTyrAlaArgSer Val                              170175180                                                                      TGGGATGAATTTAAAAAATACTTCATGGAGTATTGGCAAAAATATGCT809                            TrpAspGluPheLysLysTyrPheMetGluTyrTrpGlnLysTy rAla                              185190195                                                                      CAGCTTTATACCGAAATGTTATCTGATACATTTCTTGCAATGGCTATT857                            GlnLeuTyrThrGluMetLeuSerAspThrPheLeuAlaMetAlaI le                              200205210                                                                      CAGCAATATACACGACAAACGCTTACTGATGAAGGCTTTCTTATGGTT905                            GlnGlnTyrThrArgGlnThrLeuThrAspGluGlyPheLeuMetVal                                215220225                                                                     TGTAACACATATTATGGCAATAAGGAAGAAGTTCAAATAACTCTACTA953                            CysAsnThrTyrTyrGlyAsnLysGluGluValGlnIleThrLeuLeu                               230 235240245                                                                  GATATCTATGGATACCCTTCCACTGATATAATTTGTATAGAGCAAAAA1001                           AspIleTyrGlyTyrProSerThrAspIleIleCysIleGluGlnLys                                250255260                                                                     GGGCTTCCTACTCCTAAAGTGATACTTTACATTCCTGGAGGAACACAA1049                           GlyLeuProThrProLysValIleLeuTyrIleProGlyGlyThrGln                                265270275                                                                     CCATTTGTTGAATTTCTTAATACAGATGATCTGAAACAATGGATTGCA1097                           ProPheValGluPheLeuAsnThrAspAspLeuLysGlnTrpIleAla                               280 285290                                                                     TGGCATTTAAAAGATAACAAACATATGGTCCGATTCCGCAAACATTTC1145                           TrpHisLeuLysAspAsnLysHisMetValArgPheArgLysHisPhe                               295 300305                                                                     TCGCTAAAACAACGTCAGGAAGGAGAAACGTTTACAGGTATAGATAAA1193                           SerLeuLysGlnArgGlnGluGlyGluThrPheThrGlyIleAspLys                               310315 320325                                                                  GCACTTCAATATATTGCAGAAGAGTCCCCTGAATGGCCTGCCAATAAA1241                           AlaLeuGlnTyrIleAlaGluGluSerProGluTrpProAlaAsnLys                               330 335340                                                                     TACATCCTTTATAATCCGACACATTTAGAAACAGAAAATTTATTTAAC1289                           TyrIleLeuTyrAsnProThrHisLeuGluThrGluAsnLeuPheAsn                               345 350355                                                                     ATCATGATGAAGCGAACAGAACAGCGGATGCTTGAAGATAGTGATGTA1337                           IleMetMetLysArgThrGluGlnArgMetLeuGluAspSerAspVal                               360 365370                                                                     CAGATTAGATCAAATTCAGAAGCTACCCGTGACTATGCTCTTTCATTA1385                           GlnIleArgSerAsnSerGluAlaThrArgAspTyrAlaLeuSerLeu                               375380 385                                                                     CTCGAAACCTTTATTTCACAGTTATCTGCAATAGATATGTTAGTACCA1433                           LeuGluThrPheIleSerGlnLeuSerAlaIleAspMetLeuValPro                               390395400 405                                                                  GCAGTAGGTATCCCAATTAATTTTGCCCTATCAGCTACAGCATTAGGA1481                           AlaValGlyIleProIleAsnPheAlaLeuSerAlaThrAlaLeuGly                               410415 420                                                                     CTTAGCTCGGATATTGTAGTTAATGGAGATTCATATGAAAAGAGAAAA1529                           LeuSerSerAspIleValValAsnGlyAspSerTyrGluLysArgLys                               425430 435                                                                     TATGGAATTGGGTCCTTAGTGCAATCTGCATTATTCACAGGAATTAAT1577                           TyrGlyIleGlySerLeuValGlnSerAlaLeuPheThrGlyIleAsn                               440445 450                                                                     CTTATTCCAGTTATTTCGGAAACCGCAGAAATTTTATCTTCTTTCTCT1625                           LeuIleProValIleSerGluThrAlaGluIleLeuSerSerPheSer                               455460465                                                                      AGAACAGAAGAAGATATTCCAGCTTTTTTCACTGAAGAACAAGCTTTA1673                           ArgThrGluGluAspIleProAlaPhePheThrGluGluGlnAlaLeu                               470475480 485                                                                  GCTCAACGCTTTGAAATAGTAGAAGAAGAATTACATTCTATCTCACCT1721                           AlaGlnArgPheGluIleValGluGluGluLeuHisSerIleSerPro                               490495 500                                                                     GATGATCCTCCTCGAGAAATTACTGACGAAAATTTACATAAAATTCGT1769                           AspAspProProArgGluIleThrAspGluAsnLeuHisLysIleArg                               5055105 15                                                                     CTGGTACGTCTTAACAATGAAAATCAACCTTTAGTTGTGTTACGAAGA1817                           LeuValArgLeuAsnAsnGluAsnGlnProLeuValValLeuArgArg                               520525530                                                                      TT AGGAGGAAATAAATTTATCAGAATCGAGCCTATAACATTCCAGGAA1865                          LeuGlyGlyAsnLysPheIleArgIleGluProIleThrPheGlnGlu                               535540545                                                                      ATAAAAGGTT CTTTAGTAAGTGAAGTTATAAATCCAGTGACTAATAAA1913                          IleLysGlySerLeuValSerGluValIleAsnProValThrAsnLys                               550555560565                                                                   ACGTAC TACGTAAGCAATGCTAAACTATTAGGGGGCTCTCCTTATAGT1961                          ThrTyrTyrValSerAsnAlaLysLeuLeuGlyGlySerProTyrSer                               570575580                                                                      CCTTTC CGTATTGGATTAGAAGGTGTTTGGACACCAGAGGTATTAAAA2009                          ProPheArgIleGlyLeuGluGlyValTrpThrProGluValLeuLys                               585590595                                                                      GCAAGAGC TTCCGTTATTGGAAAGCCTATTGGAGAATCATATAAAAGA2057                          AlaArgAlaSerValIleGlyLysProIleGlyGluSerTyrLysArg                               600605610                                                                      ATATTAGCCAAAC TACAAAGAATACATAACAGTAATATCTTAGATGAG2105                          IleLeuAlaLysLeuGlnArgIleHisAsnSerAsnIleLeuAspGlu                               615620625                                                                      CGACAAGGTTTAATGCATGAA CTCATGGAGCTTATTGATCTTTATGAA2153                          ArgGlnGlyLeuMetHisGluLeuMetGluLeuIleAspLeuTyrGlu                               630635640645                                                                   GAATCGCAACCTTCTTCA GAGCGTTTGAATGCTTTTCGTGAACTGCGT2201                          GluSerGlnProSerSerGluArgLeuAsnAlaPheArgGluLeuArg                               650655660                                                                      ACTCAATTAGAAAAAGC GCTTTATCTTCCTGAAATGGAAGCATTAAAA2249                          ThrGlnLeuGluLysAlaLeuTyrLeuProGluMetGluAlaLeuLys                               665670675                                                                      AAACAAATACTACAGATTC CTAACAAAGGTTCTGGTGCCGCTCGATTT2297                          LysGlnIleLeuGlnIleProAsnLysGlySerGlyAlaAlaArgPhe                               680685690                                                                      TTACTTCGTACAGCCATGAATGAA ATGGCTGGAAAAACCAGTGAAAGC2345                          LeuLeuArgThrAlaMetAsnGluMetAlaGlyLysThrSerGluSer                               695700705                                                                      ACGGCTGATTTAATACGCTTTGCCTTGCAAGAT ACAGTAATTTCAGCG2393                          ThrAlaAspLeuIleArgPheAlaLeuGlnAspThrValIleSerAla                               710715720725                                                                   CCTTTTCGCGGATATGCTGGTGCGATTCC AGAGGCAATAGACTTTCCT2441                          ProPheArgGlyTyrAlaGlyAlaIleProGluAlaIleAspPhePro                               730735740                                                                      GTAAAATATGTAATAGAAGACATATCTG TATTTGATAAAATACAGACA2489                          ValLysTyrValIleGluAspIleSerValPheAspLysIleGlnThr                               745750755                                                                      AATTACTGGGAACTTCCTGCTTATGAAAGC TGGAACGAAGGAAGTAAT2537                          AsnTyrTrpGluLeuProAlaTyrGluSerTrpAsnGluGlySerAsn                               760765770                                                                      AGCCGATTACTGCCTGGTTTGTTACGTGAATCGCAA AGCAAGGGGATG2585                          SerArgLeuLeuProGlyLeuLeuArgGluSerGlnSerLysGlyMet                               775780785                                                                      TTAAGTAAGTGTCGTATCATAGAAAATAGCCTTTATATTGGACA TAGC2633                          LeuSerLysCysArgIleIleGluAsnSerLeuTyrIleGlyHisSer                               790795800805                                                                   TATGAAGAAATGTTTTACAGCATTTCTCCATATTCAAACC AGGTTGGA2681                          TyrGluGluMetPheTyrSerIleSerProTyrSerAsnGlnValGly                               810815820                                                                      GGGCCTTATGAATTATATCCTTTCACTTTTTTCAGTATG CTTCAAGAA2729                          GlyProTyrGluLeuTyrProPheThrPhePheSerMetLeuGlnGlu                               825830835                                                                      GTACAAGGTGATTTAGGATTTGAGCAGGCCTTTGCCACACGT AACTTT2777                          ValGlnGlyAspLeuGlyPheGluGlnAlaPheAlaThrArgAsnPhe                               840845850                                                                      TTCAATACTCTTGTTTCTGATCGACTATCCTTAATGGAAAATACGAT G2825                          PheAsnThrLeuValSerAspArgLeuSerLeuMetGluAsnThrMet                               855860865                                                                      TTACTTACAGAAAGTTTTGATTATACACCTTGGGATGCTATTTATGGA2873                            LeuLeuThrGluSerPheAspTyrThrProTrpAspAlaIleTyrGly                              870875880885                                                                   GATATTAATTATGATGAACAATTTGCTGCAATGTCTATTAATGAACGC 2921                          AspIleAsnTyrAspGluGlnPheAlaAlaMetSerIleAsnGluArg                               890895900                                                                      ATAGAAAAATGTATGAATACCTATAGAGGTGTGGCATTCCAAAACTCT 2969                          IleGluLysCysMetAsnThrTyrArgGlyValAlaPheGlnAsnSer                               905910915                                                                      TCAAAAAGTATTGACTTTTTCCTAAATAATCTAACCACATTCATTGAT30 17                          SerLysSerIleAspPhePheLeuAsnAsnLeuThrThrPheIleAsp                               920925930                                                                      AATGGACTAACCGAAATTGCTATATCTGATTTACCGTATGATATTGTG3065                           Asn GlyLeuThrGluIleAlaIleSerAspLeuProTyrAspIleVal                              935940945                                                                      CAACAAGAAATCTCTCAATTCTTACAAGGAAGTAATGAATGGAAAACA3113                           GlnGlnGluIl eSerGlnPheLeuGlnGlySerAsnGluTrpLysThr                              950955960965                                                                   CTTGATGCCATGTTATTTAACTTAGATAAAGGAGATATTAATGGTGCT3161                           LeuAspA laMetLeuPheAsnLeuAspLysGlyAspIleAsnGlyAla                              970975980                                                                      TTCAGAAAGCTTCTGCAATCAGCAAAAGATAATAATATAAAATTTAGA3209                           PheArg LysLeuLeuGlnSerAlaLysAspAsnAsnIleLysPheArg                              985990995                                                                      GCTATAGGGCATTCAGATAATTCTGTTCCGCCATTTAATAACCCTTAT3257                           AlaIleGly HisSerAspAsnSerValProProPheAsnAsnProTyr                              100010051010                                                                   AAGTCTTTATATTATAAAGGAAATATAATAGCTGAAGCAATTGAAAAA3305                           LysSerLeuTyrT yrLysGlyAsnIleIleAlaGluAlaIleGluLys                              101510201025                                                                   CTAGATCGAGAAGGTCAAAAATTTGTTGTATTTGCTGATAGTTCTCTG3353                           LeuAspArgGluGlyGlnLys PheValValPheAlaAspSerSerLeu                              1030103510401045                                                               CTCAACAGCACGCCTGGGACAGGTCGTCCTATGCCAGGACTAGTTCAA3401                           LeuAsnSerThrProG lyThrGlyArgProMetProGlyLeuValGln                              105010551060                                                                   TATTTAAAAATACCAGCAACTGTAGTAGATAGCGATGGTGCATGGCAA3449                           TyrLeuLysIlePro AlaThrValValAspSerAspGlyAlaTrpGln                              106510701075                                                                   TTTCTTCCAGATGTAGCTTCAAGCAGAGTTCCTATTGAAGTTACAGAG3497                           PheLeuProAspValA laSerSerArgValProIleGluValThrGlu                              108010851090                                                                   TTAGAAAATTGGCAAGTCTTAACTCCTCCACAAGGTAAGATTCTTGGA3545                           LeuGluAsnTrpGlnValLeu ThrProProGlnGlyLysIleLeuGly                              109511001105                                                                   TTAAAGCAATTTAAGTTAACGGCAGGTTTTCCAACAGAACAAAGTCGC3593                           LeuLysGlnPheLysLeuThrAlaGlyP heProThrGluGlnSerArg                              1110111511201125                                                               TTACCTCTTTTAGAGAATTCGGTTTCTGAAGATTTAAGGGAAGAATTA3641                           LeuProLeuLeuGluAsnSerVal SerGluAspLeuArgGluGluLeu                              113011351140                                                                   ATGCAAAAGATTGATGCAATAAAAAATGATGTGAAAATGAATAGTTTA3689                           MetGlnLysIleAspAlaIleL ysAsnAspValLysMetAsnSerLeu                              114511501155                                                                   GTGTGTATGGAAGCTGGCTCTTGTGATTCAGTAAGCCCTAAGGTAGCT3737                           ValCysMetGluAlaGlySerCys AspSerValSerProLysValAla                              116011651170                                                                   GCCCGTCTTAAAGATATGGGGTTAGAAGCTGGGATGGGTGCTTCTATT3785                           AlaArgLeuLysAspMetGlyLeuGluA laGlyMetGlyAlaSerIle                              117511801185                                                                   ACCTGGTGGAGACGTGAAGGCGGGATGGAATTTTCACATCAGATGCAT3833                           ThrTrpTrpArgArgGluGlyGlyMetGluPheSer HisGlnMetHis                              1190119512001205                                                               ACTACTGCTTCCTTTAAATTTGCTGGTAAAGAGTTTGCCGTGGATGCT3881                           ThrThrAlaSerPheLysPheAlaGlyLysG luPheAlaValAspAla                              121012151220                                                                   TCACATTTACAATTTGTACACGACCAATTAGATACAACTATCCTGATA3929                           SerHisLeuGlnPheValHisAspGlnLeu AspThrThrIleLeuIle                              122512301235                                                                   CTACCTGTAGATGATTGGGCTTTAGAAATAGCTCAAAGAAATCGGGCT3977                           LeuProValAspAspTrpAlaLeuGluIleA laGlnArgAsnArgAla                              124012451250                                                                   ATTAATCCTTTTGTGGAATATGTTAGTAAAACAGGAAACATGTTAGCA4025                           IleAsnProPheValGluTyrValSerLysThrGly AsnMetLeuAla                              125512601265                                                                   CTCTTCATGCCTCCTCTTTTCACAAAGCCTCGCTTAACAAGAGCACTA4073                           LeuPheMetProProLeuPheThrLysProArgLeuThrArgA laLeu                              1270127512801285                                                               TAACTAATTAAAAACTGTATTAAAGCCTTATATTATAAGGCTTTAATTTTCTTTCAAGAA4133               TTATTAAGTAGAAGAATCAAAATCAATGAGATAGATAAAATCAAAT GTTATTACCAATAC4193              AACTTTCTTAAGTATACTTTTTGAATTTTTTGCGTTAATAAATTTATAATACCCTTAACT4253               CAATAAAAGAAGTTATTGAGAAGTTTAAATCTTGTGAGCAAGATGAAGATATAATTTCAG4313               CAATCGATCTTATTAGCGCTTCA TATAGAAGGGCTGTGGATGCAGTGGAACAAAGATTCG4373              GTTCTAG4380                                                                    (2) INFORMATION FOR SEQ ID NO:2:                                               (i) SEQUENCE CHARACTERISTICS:                                                  (A) LENGTH: 1285 amino acids                                                   (B) TYPE: amino acid                                                           (D) TOPOLOGY: linear                                                           (ii) MOLECULE TYPE: protein                                                    (xi) SEQUENCE DESCRIPTION: SEQ ID NO:2:                                        MetLysThrLysHisPhePheAsnSerAspPheThrValLysGlyLys                               151015                                                                         SerAlaAspGluIlePheArgArgLeuCys ThrAspHisProAspLys                              202530                                                                         GlnLeuAsnAsnValLysTrpLysGluValPheIleAsnArgPheGly                               354045                                                                         GlnMetMetLeuAspThrProAsnProArgLysIleValGluLysIle                               505560                                                                         IleAsnGluGlyLeuGluLysGlnGlyLeuLysAsnIleAspProGlu                               65 707580                                                                      AsnThrTyrPheAsnIlePheSerSerSerAspSerSerAspGlyAsn                               859095                                                                         ValPheHisTyrAsnSer LeuSerGluSerTyrArgValThrAspAla                              100105110                                                                      CysLeuMetAsnIlePheValGluArgTyrPheAspAspTrpAspLeu                               115120 125                                                                     LeuAsnSerLeuAlaSerAsnGlyIleTyrSerValGlyLysGluGly                               130135140                                                                      AlaTyrTyrProAspHisAspTyrGlyProGluTyrAsnProValTrp                               14 5150155160                                                                  GlyProAsnGluGlnIleTyrHisSerArgValIleAlaAspIleLeu                               165170175                                                                      TyrAlaA rgSerValTrpAspGluPheLysLysTyrPheMetGluTyr                              180185190                                                                      TrpGlnLysTyrAlaGlnLeuTyrThrGluMetLeuSerAspThrPhe                               195 200205                                                                     LeuAlaMetAlaIleGlnGlnTyrThrArgGlnThrLeuThrAspGlu                               210215220                                                                      GlyPheLeuMetValCysAsnThrTyrTyrGlyAsnLys GluGluVal                              225230235240                                                                   GlnIleThrLeuLeuAspIleTyrGlyTyrProSerThrAspIleIle                               245250 255                                                                     CysIleGluGlnLysGlyLeuProThrProLysValIleLeuTyrIle                               260265270                                                                      ProGlyGlyThrGlnProPheValGluPheLeuAsnThrAspAspLeu                                275280285                                                                     LysGlnTrpIleAlaTrpHisLeuLysAspAsnLysHisMetValArg                               290295300                                                                      PheArgLysHisPheSerLeuLysGlnA rgGlnGluGlyGluThrPhe                              305310315320                                                                   ThrGlyIleAspLysAlaLeuGlnTyrIleAlaGluGluSerProGlu                               325330 335                                                                     TrpProAlaAsnLysTyrIleLeuTyrAsnProThrHisLeuGluThr                               340345350                                                                      GluAsnLeuPheAsnIleMetMetLysArgThrGluGlnArg MetLeu                              355360365                                                                      GluAspSerAspValGlnIleArgSerAsnSerGluAlaThrArgAsp                               370375380                                                                      TyrAlaLeuSerLeuLe uGluThrPheIleSerGlnLeuSerAlaIle                              385390395400                                                                   AspMetLeuValProAlaValGlyIleProIleAsnPheAlaLeuSer                               405 410415                                                                     AlaThrAlaLeuGlyLeuSerSerAspIleValValAsnGlyAspSer                               420425430                                                                      TyrGluLysArgLysTyrGlyIleGlySerL euValGlnSerAlaLeu                              435440445                                                                      PheThrGlyIleAsnLeuIleProValIleSerGluThrAlaGluIle                               450455460                                                                      LeuSer SerPheSerArgThrGluGluAspIleProAlaPhePheThr                              465470475480                                                                   GluGluGlnAlaLeuAlaGlnArgPheGluIleValGluGluGluLeu                                485490495                                                                     HisSerIleSerProAspAspProProArgGluIleThrAspGluAsn                               500505510                                                                      LeuHisLysIleArgLeuVa lArgLeuAsnAsnGluAsnGlnProLeu                              515520525                                                                      ValValLeuArgArgLeuGlyGlyAsnLysPheIleArgIleGluPro                               530535 540                                                                     IleThrPheGlnGluIleLysGlySerLeuValSerGluValIleAsn                               545550555560                                                                   ProValThrAsnLysThrTyrTyrValSerAsnAlaLysLeuLeuG ly                              565570575                                                                      GlySerProTyrSerProPheArgIleGlyLeuGluGlyValTrpThr                               580585590                                                                      ProGluVal LeuLysAlaArgAlaSerValIleGlyLysProIleGly                              595600605                                                                      GluSerTyrLysArgIleLeuAlaLysLeuGlnArgIleHisAsnSer                               610615 620                                                                     AsnIleLeuAspGluArgGlnGlyLeuMetHisGluLeuMetGluLeu                               625630635640                                                                   IleAspLeuTyrGluGluSerGlnProSerSerGl uArgLeuAsnAla                              645650655                                                                      PheArgGluLeuArgThrGlnLeuGluLysAlaLeuTyrLeuProGlu                               66066567 0                                                                     MetGluAlaLeuLysLysGlnIleLeuGlnIleProAsnLysGlySer                               675680685                                                                      GlyAlaAlaArgPheLeuLeuArgThrAlaMetAsnGluMetAlaGly                               690 695700                                                                     LysThrSerGluSerThrAlaAspLeuIleArgPheAlaLeuGlnAsp                               705710715720                                                                   ThrValIleSerAlaProPheArg GlyTyrAlaGlyAlaIleProGlu                              725730735                                                                      AlaIleAspPheProValLysTyrValIleGluAspIleSerValPhe                               740745 750                                                                     AspLysIleGlnThrAsnTyrTrpGluLeuProAlaTyrGluSerTrp                               755760765                                                                      AsnGluGlySerAsnSerArgLeuLeuProGlyLeuLeuArgGluSe r                              770775780                                                                      GlnSerLysGlyMetLeuSerLysCysArgIleIleGluAsnSerLeu                               785790795800                                                                   TyrIleGlyHis SerTyrGluGluMetPheTyrSerIleSerProTyr                              805810815                                                                      SerAsnGlnValGlyGlyProTyrGluLeuTyrProPheThrPhePhe                               820 825830                                                                     SerMetLeuGlnGluValGlnGlyAspLeuGlyPheGluGlnAlaPhe                               835840845                                                                      AlaThrArgAsnPhePheAsnThrLeuValSerAsp ArgLeuSerLeu                              850855860                                                                      MetGluAsnThrMetLeuLeuThrGluSerPheAspTyrThrProTrp                               865870875880                                                                   A spAlaIleTyrGlyAspIleAsnTyrAspGluGlnPheAlaAlaMet                              885890895                                                                      SerIleAsnGluArgIleGluLysCysMetAsnThrTyrArgGlyVal                                900905910                                                                     AlaPheGlnAsnSerSerLysSerIleAspPhePheLeuAsnAsnLeu                               915920925                                                                      ThrThrPheIleAspAsnGlyLeu ThrGluIleAlaIleSerAspLeu                              930935940                                                                      ProTyrAspIleValGlnGlnGluIleSerGlnPheLeuGlnGlySer                               945950955 960                                                                  AsnGluTrpLysThrLeuAspAlaMetLeuPheAsnLeuAspLysGly                               965970975                                                                      AspIleAsnGlyAlaPheArgLysLeuLeuGlnSerAlaLysAsp Asn                              980985990                                                                      AsnIleLysPheArgAlaIleGlyHisSerAspAsnSerValProPro                               99510001005                                                                    PheAsnAsnPro TyrLysSerLeuTyrTyrLysGlyAsnIleIleAla                              101010151020                                                                   GluAlaIleGluLysLeuAspArgGluGlyGlnLysPheValValPhe                               10251030 10351040                                                              AlaAspSerSerLeuLeuAsnSerThrProGlyThrGlyArgProMet                               104510501055                                                                   ProGlyLeuValGlnTyrLeuLysIlePro AlaThrValValAspSer                              106010651070                                                                   AspGlyAlaTrpGlnPheLeuProAspValAlaSerSerArgValPro                               10751080108 5                                                                  IleGluValThrGluLeuGluAsnTrpGlnValLeuThrProProGln                               109010951100                                                                   GlyLysIleLeuGlyLeuLysGlnPheLysLeuThrAlaGlyPhePro                               1105 111011151120                                                              ThrGluGlnSerArgLeuProLeuLeuGluAsnSerValSerGluAsp                               112511301135                                                                   LeuArgGluGluLeu MetGlnLysIleAspAlaIleLysAsnAspVal                              114011451150                                                                   LysMetAsnSerLeuValCysMetGluAlaGlySerCysAspSerVal                               1155116 01165                                                                  SerProLysValAlaAlaArgLeuLysAspMetGlyLeuGluAlaGly                               117011751180                                                                   MetGlyAlaSerIleThrTrpTrpArgArgGluGlyGlyMetGlu Phe                              1185119011951200                                                               SerHisGlnMetHisThrThrAlaSerPheLysPheAlaGlyLysGlu                               120512101215                                                                    PheAlaValAspAlaSerHisLeuGlnPheValHisAspGlnLeuAsp                              122012251230                                                                   ThrThrIleLeuIleLeuProValAspAspTrpAlaLeuGluIleAla                               123 512401245                                                                  GlnArgAsnArgAlaIleAsnProPheValGluTyrValSerLysThr                               125012551260                                                                   GlyAsnMetLeuAlaLeuPheMetProPro LeuPheThrLysProArg                              1265127012751280                                                               LeuThrArgAlaLeu                                                                1285                                                                       

We claim:
 1. An isolated and purified DNA molecule that encodes a polypeptide product comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ. ID. NO. 1, lacking amino acid 30 to
 150. 2. A DNA molecule of claim 1, further comprising another nucleotide sequence that codes for a another polypeptide, wherein said DNA molecule encodes a fusion protein (i) comprised of said coding region O and said other polypeptide.
 3. An expression vector comprising A DNA molecule of claim
 1. 4. A microorganism containing the expression vector of claim
 3. 5. A microoroganism of claim 4, wherein said microorganism is a bacterium.
 6. A bacterium of claim 5, wherein said bacterium is Escherichia coli.
 7. A method for the production of a of Pasteurella multocida toxin polypeptide, comprising the steps of(i) transforming a suitable host organism with a DNA molecule according to claim 1; (ii) culturing said host organism to express said polypeptide product; (iii) separating said polypeptide product from said host organism; and (iv) recovering said polypeptide product in a purified form.
 8. A method according to claim 7, further comprising after step (iv) a step of subjecting said polypeptide product to a chemical treatment which affects the toxicity of said polypeptide product.
 9. A method according to claim 8, wherein the chemical treatment is selected from the group consisting of formaldehyde treatment, glutaraldehyde treatment, and proteolytic enzyme treatment. 